


The Devil Wears Gucci

by Multiple_Universes



Series: The Devil Wears Prada AU [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aged-Up Otabek Altin, Aged-Up Yuri Plisetsky, Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Angst, Clothing Kink, Fashion & Couture, Fashion Designer Victor Nikiforov, M/M, Movie AU, Smut, Unhealthy Relationships, book AU, devil wears prada au, fashionista everyone else, ironic angst comedy, journalist Yuuri Katsuki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2018-10-18 06:01:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 82,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10610748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multiple_Universes/pseuds/Multiple_Universes
Summary: Yuuri Katsuki graduates from college with one dream: to become a journalist. But journalism jobs are harder to get than anticipated and, to his and everyone else's great surprise, he ends up with a job a million people would kill for: an assistant to the most stylish man alive and the editor ofRunway, Victor Nikiforov. Unfortunately, Yuuri himself has no sense of fashion whatsoever, but as it soon turns out that is only the start of his problems.





	1. Desperate

**Author's Note:**

> At some point I jokingly said to my beta "imagine a Devil Wears Prada AU for Yuri on Ice". The response I got was "I would read it" And then I knew I was going to write it. This will be mostly based on the movie with some bits of the book thrown in for good measure. (I later discovered that someone else wrote this AU, but I wanted to try writing it myself. Hopefully that won't upset anyone.)
> 
> And a big thank you to LittleDearOne for being my beta for this fic!

There are many things a person may be driven to out of desperation (Yuuri Katsuki’s previous job was one such example and – oddly enough – his new job turned into another), but there comes a point in everyone’s life when they must ask themselves: am I that desperate?

Yuuri Katsuki was fresh out of college with the kind of keenness that people have when they think they will go out into the world and make a difference, or – failing that – will find their dream job, work hard until retirement and have the kind of old age that is full of smiles, grandkids, and everything else that film directors think happen during retirement.

There were only a few problems with this plan. First: it was harder to find a job straight out of college than he’d thought. Second: living alone in a big city like New York turned out to be much more expensive than he’d initially anticipated.

And so, he found himself one evening on the couch in his friend, Phichit’s, apartment, his head buried under a pillow, promising to take a job at any magazine willing to accept him.

Phichit watched all this with amusement. “Ready to become a world-famous journalist? To tell the public the truth they don’t know?”

“Don’t even start,” Yuuri begged.

“What you need to do is apply to all the magazines.”

“I already did,” Yuuri told him. “Last week I visited every single one in the city. I’ll write articles about grass, if it gets me a job!”

“Well, if you’re that desperate –”

Yuuri’s phone rang. “Yes? This is Yuuri Katsuki… Tomorrow? Of course!” He wrote down some details, nodded, said yes a couple of times, and ended the call.

“I have an interview!” he announced.

“Really? With who?”

“ _Runway_ ,” Yuuri answered, reading the name from the paper he’d written it down on.

Phichit burst out laughing.

“What is it?” Yuuri asked, wondering what the joke was.

“Don’t you know what _Runway_ is?” He stared at Yuuri’s blank expression and remembered just who he was talking to. “Of course you don’t! It’s a _fashion magazine_.”

“If this is your way of teasing me about my clothes again –”

“I wasn’t going to before, but I will now!” Phichit grinned. “Do you want to borrow some of my clothes?”

Yuuri thought of Phichit’s big closet that took up a whole room of his big apartment. “I’ll be just fine!” He protested and ran off to hide in the room that had become his in the past week. “It’s an interview, not a ball!” he called over his shoulder. He closed the door, hoping like mad that Phichit wouldn’t follow the comment up with more jokes. He’d heard them all over the years. He knew he had no sense of fashion, but it never mattered before. Would it really matter now? Did you have to be fashionable to write for a fashion magazine?

Phichit just shook his head. “Maybe it’s better if you don’t get it,” he muttered.

 

The next day he found himself entering the Elias-Clarke building for his interview.

A cardinal law of the universe states that if on their way to an interview a person overhears someone bad-mouthing someone else then the person discussed is automatically guaranteed to be the interviewee’s new boss. It doesn’t matter if the interviewee isn’t suited for the job, or if there is a better candidate (or, as in a couple of freak cases, the interview is for a completely different job with a completely different boss). The awful, terrible, unfeeling, son-of-a-dog of the female persuasion is about to become the interviewee’s new boss. All that’s left at this point is to wish them good luck.

Yuuri stood in the elevator while two women gossiped next to him.

“Can you believe it? I mean – what a jerk! We run around for two weeks like mad, trying to get everything ready, and at the very last minute he changes the entire theme and then gets angry that no one is ready! What a bastard!”

The other woman smiled. “He may be a bastard, but at least he’s a good-looking bastard.”

“Yeah…” There was a collective sigh at this.

That, of course, was another rule of the universe: if you’re blessed with great looks you can get away with very nearly anything. If you have lots of money and a position of power, then you’re essentially untouchable.

 _That person sounds terrible,_ Yuuri thought. _I would never be able to work for a person like that._

The women got off on one floor and Yuuri – on the next, which just happened to be the top floor.

There is a lot to be said about a person who keeps their office on the top floor of a tall building. Had Phichit been on hand, he would – no doubt – have suggested several possibilities. None of them even occurred to Yuuri.

Yuuri stepped out and immediately he felt out of place. He’d got an inkling of the feeling on the ground floor and in the elevator, but now he felt as if he’d walked into a formal dinner wearing nothing but an old garbage bag.

People with perfect hair and perfect skin walked through the halls. Some of the women were so thin it was surprising they didn’t fall over when the wind picked up. The men looked like they spent all of their free time in the gym. Everything stank of money. Yuuri knew nothing about fashion, but when someone walked by looking like the cover of one of those fashion magazines he always saw in convenience stores, he remembered Phichit’s stories about clothes with price tags into the four digits.

 _I can go back,_ he thought. _No, no. I can’t go. I need this job. I have no money and I swore I wouldn’t go back to my previous job. If I survived that, I can survive this._

A woman stepped up to him with a polite smile and he became very conscious of his shabby suit with a stitched up elbow as well as his dirty shoes. “Good morning. How may I help you?” Something about her tone suggested that she thought he was lost.

“Good morning. I’m here to see…” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and read the name he’d written there. “Yuri… Plisetsky. I’m –”

A young man stepped out as Yuuri spoke. He stopped and stared at Yuuri in shock.

“Yuuri Katsuki?” he asked.

“Yes.”

The young man scoffed. “HR clearly has an odd sense of humour.” Seeing the confusion on Yuuri’s face he added, “I’m Yuri Plisetsky. Follow me.”

Yuuri followed, wondering what the comment about HR had meant.

“I used to be Victor’s second assistant,” Yuuri explained, “but then the first assistant got promoted, so now I’m looking for someone to replace me as the second assistant.”

Yuuri struggled to keep up with the stream of information. “Uh… Victor? Who’s Victor?” _And why does he need two assistants?_

Yuri stopped and Yuuri nearly walked into him. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear you say that. Victor Nikiforov?” he looked into Yuuri’s face, waiting for a reaction. “No?” He rolled his eyes. “I need to have a serious talk with HR. If this is…” he groaned, as if it was too much effort to finish the sentence, and flicked his hair out of his face. “Victor Nikiforov! He’s a legend!” There was a note of admiration in his voice as he went on. “Only _the most_ important person in the fashion industry! I’m obviously not counting that idiot who edits for _Fantastic Man_ , don’t know what they were thinking when they took him on…” he rambled half under his breath.

“It sounds like a great position,” Yuuri said, warming to the job already. “I’d love to be considered.” _It can’t be that hard to write about fashion, anyway._

Yuri laughed sarcastically. “Yuuri…” He turned and gave him a look. “We work for a _fashion magazine_. Interest in fashion is crucial.”

“What makes you think I’m not interested in fashion?” Yuuri asked defensively. _Damn! How did he know? Is it that obvious?_

Yuri looked him up and down and then his phone rang. “What?” he asked like a person at the end of their rope. “What?” he asked in an entirely different tone of voice. “No! You can’t –” He broke off the call and then called someone else. “He’s coming. I’m serious. Tell them! _Yes_ , everyone!” He ended the call as people around them ran in different directions as if the building was on fire.

Yuuri half expected to hear screams of terror, but it was a controlled panic. People ran for their desks, changed shoes, coats, glasses. Several women pulled out mirrors or turned on their webcams and reapplied their makeup. Yuuri stared.

_They’re all mad. What’s going on? It looks like the inspection is about to arrive! I always thought the fashion police joke was just that – a joke._

A man walked into the room. He wore round glasses and had short blond hair. His face was unshaven but in the same way that actors’ and movie stars’ faces were unshaven: there was something stylish about it.

He walked straight past Yuuri. “He’s not supposed to be here before nine!” he protested.

Yuri made an exasperated gesture as if to show that events had spiralled far out of his control and there was nothing he could do about it.

The man turned and made to walk out of the room. He stopped next to Yuuri and made a gesture that he probably thought was subtle and would be missed by the interviewee, but which Yuuri saw quite clearly.

 _Who’s that?_ The man mouthed.

“That I can’t even talk about,” Yuri responded.

Yuuri flushed angrily at this and bit back a retort.

Of course they were all fashionable and in the know, but surely that gave them no right to treat him like this.

The anger made him forget his nervousness and kept him fixed to the spot. He was determined to have a proper interview.

“Alright everyone!” the blond man in glasses shouted with a look that was almost that of enjoyment. “Gird your loins!”

There was more quiet panic at this and some straightening of clothes.

Yuri ran off into what looked like the main office and hastily arranged a pile of magazines on the desk, straightened everything in the room and ran back out.

Outside a sleek pink car pulled up. A foot stepped out followed by a long leg and then the rest of a very tall, very impressive-looking man in a long black coat came out onto the street. He adjusted his designer sunglasses with a smile and entered the Elias-Clarke building.

The devil had arrived.


	2. First Impressions

The elevator rose up through the building as the people on the top floor gradually settled down. There was a quiet ding and the door opened. The much-awaited Victor Nikiforov stepped out calmly and removed his glasses. Very briefly a smile of pure joy appeared on his face and was gone, as if it had an urgent appointment elsewhere.

Yuri Plisetsky nudged Yuuri out of the way and joined Victor as quickly and as calmly as he could.

“I don’t understand,” Victor started as soon as he saw his assistant, “why you didn’t call to confirm the appointment.” There was almost a hurt note in his tone of voice.

“So sorry, Victor. I did call last –”

“Details of your incompetence don’t interest me,” he said with a smile as if delivering a compliment. “Tell Simone I won't approve that girl she sent me for the Brazilian layout. I asked for clean, athletic, smiley. She sent dirty, tired and paunchy. I need to see all the things that Chris has prepared for Sara’s second cover try. I wonder…” He stopped mid-sentence and stared at Yuuri. “Who is that?”

“Nobody,” Yuri responded quickly. Then, realizing that more of an answer was expected from him, continued, “HR sent him. I was just interviewing him for you, but he’s obviously hopeless and –”

“Clearly I’ll have to interview myself,” Victor interrupted, “because the last two you sent were inadequate. So, send him in.” He walked through the doorway of his office and took his place at the desk like a king sitting down on his throne. “That’s all.”

Yuri stormed out, looking like he was ready to deal out merry hell to everyone within a two mile radius. “He wants to see you,” he hissed at Yuuri.

Yuuri, who had sat down at one of the desks while Victor talked, fidgeted as he rose to his feet and walked over to the main office. A stretched out arm halted him halfway there.

“Don’t do that,” Yuri said. “Victor hates it when people fidget like that.”

Yuuri stepped into the office, terrified more than he’d ever been in his life. This was it. This was the moment when he’d either get the job or be sent back to Phichit’s couch to moan about how unfair everything was. He felt like he was having all of his exams at the same time.

Victor looked up from the magazine he was reading. Yuuri noticed the title in big bold letters on the cover. _Fantastic Man_. Hadn’t Yuri mentioned it earlier? He’d have to ask Phichit about it later. Phichit knew a lot about fashion, having been in the industry for several years already. Yuuri tried to remember what magazine he worked for and what exactly his job was. Was it called _Chick_ or _Chique_? And didn’t he do something related to the layout?

Yuuri’s mind snapped quickly back to the present and the powerful figure of _Runway’s_ editor-in-chief sitting in front of him.

“Who are you?” Victor asked.

“My name is Yuuri Katsuki and I think I can be your assistant,” Yuuri said and launched into what must have been the worst sales pitch in the world. “I graduated from Brown College with a degree in journalism and I regularly wrote articles for their magazine. I…uh… won an award for one of them and…” He trailed off, floundering under the unblinking blue-eyed stare of the editor.

“You’ve never read _Runway_?”

“No,” Yuuri admitted.

“Before today you’ve never heard of me?”

“Um…no.” The interview was going from really bad to extremely bad at an alarming rate. He wondered at which point he should just turn around and head outside.

“You have no style or sense of fashion.”

“I think that depends on –” he began to protest.

“That wasn’t a question,” Victor cut off coolly, a polite smile on his lips. Somehow, the presence of that smile took the sting out of his words.

The words themselves egged Yuuri on, giving him a mental kick. Here was an opportunity slipping right out of his fingers. Sure, they wrote about fashion and not news and he could see that there was a touch of craziness about the place, but he was certain in that moment that he really wanted the job. And the less likely it seemed he would get it, the more he wanted it.

“I was the top student in my class,” he said, “and even had one of my articles published in a local newspaper.”

Victor smiled.

Yuuri felt like he’d been patted on the head and given a sticker to put into his notebook. He opted for honesty. “I get it: I don’t fit in. I’m not a skinny model. I don’t look like all of my features have been refined to be considered beautiful, but I’m smart and I learn fast.”

There was a look on Victor’s face and for a moment Yuuri thought his terrible pitch had worked, but then the man from before swept into the office, a folder in his hands. He stopped in front of Victor and opened it to present its contents.

“Can you believe this? I told them not to do this, but they didn’t listen! Look at these poses!”

Victor tore his eyes away from Yuuri and stared down at the photo that had so offended the newcomer.

Yuuri, no longer pinned to the spot by that stare, felt all of his hopes drain out of him. _Back to square one, I guess._ “Thank you for your… time.”

As he left he heard that man say to Victor, “Who is that sad little person? Are we doing a before and after piece I don’t know about?”

Feeling his face burn with embarrassment, Yuuri rushed to the elevator and urged it to go faster. He wanted to crawl under a pile of pillows and pretend that it had all been a bad dream. He didn’t want to see another model ever again.

He stepped out into the lobby, ready to leave, when the sound of someone shouting his name made him turn around.

The other Yuri rolled his eyes as soon as Yuuri made eye contact with him and beckoned him with his finger.

 

He told Phichit the whole story over dinner in a restaurant as they celebrated Yuuri’s new job. Phichit found everything really funny and Yuuri tried his best to not be hurt by this.

“And then he told me his head was on the chopping block, if I couldn’t do the job properly.”

“Your new boss sounds like he’s running a little empire!” Phichit laughed.

Yuuri then uttered a sentence that haunted him for a long time afterwards, “He has a kind of charm, I guess…”

Phichit watched him with a smile. “Sounds like you’re ready to take the job.”

Yuuri sighed. “It doesn’t sound like there will be any writing, though. I mean – assistant isn’t exactly a writing position.”

“Listen, Yuuri,” Phichit leaned forward, “there’s something you need to know before you –”

“Hey guys!” Guang Hong exclaimed. He stood over them with Leo de la Iglesia, both of them late and arriving together as usual.

Leo and Guang Hong had been really close for as long as Yuuri had known them. Phichit called them childhood sweethearts when they weren’t around and kept asking Yuuri if he thought it was time to interfere. Yuuri was convinced that Phichit was seeing something that wasn’t there.

The newcomers took the empty seats at the table.

“So,” Guang Hong said while Leo tried to catch a waiter’s eye, “I heard you got a job! Are you with _The New Yorker_ now?”

“I wish!” Yuuri exclaimed. That had been his lifelong dream. “I’m with _Runway_.”

“What?” Guang Hong and Leo burst out laughing at the same time. “Seriously?”

“Yes,” Yuuri said, his face red with embarrassment.

“Was it a phone interview?” Leo asked and Guang Hong laughed louder.

“Come on, you guys, cut me some slack!”

“He probably walked in and…” the rest of Guang Hong’s suggestion was lost among laughter, but Leo and Phichit seemed to understand him perfectly and joined in the merriment.

“Seriously! You guys are the worst!” Yuuri jumped up. “Can we drop the subject of clothes for five minutes?”

“Oh, we’re dropping it, alright,” Phichit said and there was more laughter at that.

Yuuri turned bright red and bit his lip. Once they got started no force in the universe could stop them and anything he said would only make things worse. He knew that all too well.

They calmed down once the waiter arrived and ordered food.

Yuuri decided it was time to change the subject. “And how are you two doing?”

“I’m planning a big art show,” Guang Hong announced. “Leo promised to help.” He gave Leo a grateful smile.

“I’m designing the website and promotional material,” Leo told them. “But what about this job, Yuuri? Do you really think it’s a good idea?”

Yuuri sighed. “All I need is some experience. Apparently Victor’s name is good for opening all sorts of doors. All I have to do stick around for a year and then he’ll recommend me to the magazine of my choice.”

It had all sounded so perfect when Yuri told him about Victor’s connections that Yuuri’s brain made the final leap. He could recommend him, couldn’t he?

“According to his assistant it’s a very popular position.”

“Oh yes: a million people would kill for that job,” Leo said.

“What about you, Phichit?” Guang Hong asked. “How are you doing? We haven’t talked in six months!”

“Same as always,” Phichit said with a shrug. “I’m really curious to see how long Yuuri will last in this job, though.”

“Don’t you start,” Yuuri warned.

“Seriously, Yuuri, I don’t think the fashion industry is for you. I’d stick to writing about news, if I were in your position.”

That did it. Yuuri got up angrily, took his things and stormed out.

Was it his fault he wasn’t fashionable when all of his friends were? Phichit even worked for _Chick_ or _Chique_ (he still couldn’t remember which it was)! Yuuri would’ve asked him for advice, if he thought Phichit wouldn’t tease him about it afterwards.

“Yuuri!” Phichit caught up with him in the street. “Look, I’m sorry. I wasn’t referring to your fashion sense, honest!” He sighed. “I heard terrible rumours about Victor, so I thought I’d warn you before you start working there.”

“What rumours?”

“Well, you described it yourself – the man runs an empire full of terrified subjects. That doesn’t sound healthy to me.”

“Surely I’ll be fine if I’m only there for a year! It’s not like I will work for him my whole life!”

Phichit sighed. “If you’re sure. Just promise me that if it starts to get too much, you’ll leave.”

“I don’t think –”

“Please, Yuuri.”

“I promise.”

“Good,” Phichit nodded in satisfaction, “let’s go back and finish dinner.”


	3. Three Names

There might be people in the universe who when their phone or alarm rings at 5 o’clock in the morning jump out of bed, ready for another exciting day at work or school. These are very likely the same people who go to bed at 9 pm and always get at least 8 hours of sleep.

Yuuri Katsuki wasn’t one of these people. He’d stayed up late into the night, having a drunken argument with Phichit. So when his phone rang he spent a good minute trying to figure out what that annoying loud noise next to his ear was.

“Hmm…?”

“Where the hell are you?” a voice demanded. It took him several seconds to place it. Yuri Plisetsky, Victor Nikiforov’s first assistant. At _Runway_. Oh God, he really _had_ gotten that job! It hadn’t all been a dream or hallucination!

“What time –”

“It’s 5:40! I’ve been trying to reach you for ten minutes! Victor decided to kill the autumn jacket story for September. He’s putting up the Sedona shoot from October. You need to grab his coffee on the way and a few more things.”

Yuuri managed to grab a pen before Yuri got into the list and wrote everything down on the first surface that he found, which just happened to be his hand.

Yuri rang off and the new hire crawled out of bed with a yawn.

What had he been drinking the previous night? His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. The world kept spinning. Everything was too bright and too loud. He tried to remember some details of the previous evening, but nothing came. He had a sense of someone having said something important. Was it Phichit? Well, it was gone, whatever it was.

He struggled into his clothes and ran out, hoping that coffee would compensate for lack of sleep and act as a hangover cure. As luck would have it, the terror of the first day at a new job provided the perfect cure.

 

Yuri Plisetsky was having a difficult morning. This was nothing new. He’d been Victor’s only assistant for two months already with brief interludes during which he’d hire someone for the position of second assistant only to have to dismiss them in a week. He wasn’t going to give up, however. This was a job that required two people. Yuuri Katsuki, on the other hand, was very obviously _not_ up to the task.

Victor (who Yuri would never dream of insulting in any way) was always… less than his usual charming self before his first cup of coffee and so he kept sticking his head out of his office, demanding to know if ‘that new assistant had graced them with his presence yet.’ No, he hadn’t. He’d probably died of shame after yesterday. Or, would’ve, if he’d had any shame, but with clothes like that Yuri seriously doubted it.

Finally the door opened and Yuuri Katsuki burst in, three bags on each arm and a tray of coffees in his hands. He looked ready to drop. Yuri watched impassively as Yuuri dumped everything on his desk, removed his coat and then took the coffees into Victor’s office.

No sense of fashion and no sense of office etiquette. Wasn’t he lucky? Why had Victor picked him? To make a point to Yuri? And what exactly _was_ the point?

He knew that Victor wasn’t the type to throw everything away at the sight of a pretty face. God knew, he saw enough of those every day and they had no effect on him whatsoever, and Yuuri’s wasn’t one that could be called pretty, anyway.

It just made no sense.

Yuuri Katuski returned from Victor’s office and collapsed into his seat.

“I hope you’re not planning to leave your coat on your desk,” Yuri said in face of the evidence to the contrary. “We _do_ have closets, you know.”

“R-right.”

_Fresh out of college and probably never had a single serious job in his life, great._

He watched Yuuri put his coat away and then the door swung open and Victor appeared at the entrance of his office.

“Do you think this is funny?”

“Er… what?”

“I never have sugar in my coffee!”

Yuri watched the new hire freeze in fear.

“I’m only going to explain this once,” Victor said in a calm tone of voice that made Yuri shift uneasily in his seat. And then Victor recited his usual order.

Yuuri nodded.

“Do you understand?” Nod. “Good. Now, go and try again.” Victor said and disappeared back into his office.

Yuuri stared at the first assistant in disbelief. The first assistant pointed wordlessly at the door.

 _He probably got the rest of the instructions wrong too…_ he thought as Yuuri ran out, forgetting his coat.

He suppressed a sigh as he went through the items he’d asked Yuuri to get. He dialed his number as soon as he noticed the first thing that was missing.

 

Yuuri ran across the street with his phone pressed to his ear. “Yes, yes, I’m almost there. Yes, I will grab it. Yes..” The first assistant was going through a list that seemed to be at least a mile long, complete with really bizarre instructions that were running to the length of a novel. For one of the items he was supposed to go to some building on some street, ask for some lady by given name and then she’d give him a whole bunch of items only identified as “she will know what to give you”.

There were too many instructions, but the worst – in Yuuri’s opinion – was that each time he asked for a clarification Yuri would just repeat the latest instruction slowly as if he was talking to the hard of thinking.

Four hours later Yuuri returned with more bags (he’d sent the coffee via a courier earlier).

“Where have you been?” Yuri demanded as if Yuuri had gone off on a joy trip. “I’m bursting!”

“You haven’t gone since I left?”

“No, I haven’t! I’ve been manning the desk!”

Yuuri gave him an odd look. “But, surely, you can leave to go to _the bathroom_?”

Yuri returned the look with interest. For a moment Katsuki felt as if Plisetsky was going to send him off to see a doctor. “We always have to be here to answer the phones. Victor hates it when they go to voicemail. One time the assistant stepped away because she – what was it now? – cut her hand with a letter opener, or something and Victor missed an important call from Lagerfeld before his 17-hour flight to Australia. She works for a small newspaper in Kansas now.”

“Man the desk at all times. Got it.” _They really weren’t kidding around in this place!_

As Yuri walked out one of the phones rang.

“What do I –”

“Answer it!” Yuri ordered as the door closed behind him.

_Deep breaths, Yuuri, it’s just a phone… with someone super important on the other end..._

“Victor Nikiforov’s office?”

Someone said something incoherent on the other end of the phone.

“S-sorry?” he stammered.

The person on the other end barked out a name and asked for Victor with a thick accent.

“He’s in a meeting right now. C-can I take a message?” He grabbed a piece of paper and fumbled around for a pen, nearly knocking over the whole holder. “Yes. I-I’ll let him know you called. Can you spell Versace?”

The phone line went dead.

“I guess not.” He lowered the phone.

Yuri returned and the next hour was spent on introductions. There is an old tradition that on someone’s first day in the office everyone will barge in, announce their name and job description, say something about working together in the future and then walk out, as if expecting that conversation to remain ingrained in the new hire’s memory. Usually the new hire nods dumbly, waiting for it all to be over and wondering how they will ever ask for anyone’s name afterwards. At best they will remember one or two faces.

In Yuuri’s case he remembered three names.

The first person who arrived was head of hair and makeup. Something about his appearance suggested that he experimented on himself. Yuuri later found out that this first impression was correct: he would rarely see him with the same hair colour twice.

“Georgi Popovich, nice to meet you! Drop by sometime,” he added quietly and made a gesture that took in Yuuri’s hair and face. “Promise me.”

Yuuri nodded and watched Georgi walk away.

Next was a group of giggling girls lead by a redhead that Yuuri later learned was one of Yuri Plisetsky’s closest friends. They introduced themselves one by one, but it was obvious that they’d only shown up to stare at the new hire and gossip about him later. Yuuri was starting to feel like one of the animals at the zoo.

“Mila Babicheva,” the redhead introduced herself. “I thought you were joking,” she added to Yuri.

“I wish.” Yuri rolled his eyes.

And the last one was the man Yuuri had seen during his interview. He swept into the office and dropped a pair of shoes on Yuuri’s desk right in front of his face.

“Size 10, I’m guessing. Christophe Giacometti, but you can call me Chris.” He smiled and there was something genuinely warm in it.

Yuuri stared at the shoes. “What are these for?”

“Well I didn’t put them there for you to gawk at.”

“I don’t need these.” He picked them up and held them out to Chris. He was fighting the urge to say something rude. “Really, you can take them back.”

Chris gave him an incredulous look.

“Victor hired me. He knows what I look like.”

“Do you?” And he swept out, leaving the shoes behind.

He was going to spend his day sitting at a desk: who cared what was on his feet?

“Yuuri!” Victor called.

“He means you,” the first assistant said.

Yuuri jumped to his feet and rushed into the office, remembering at the last minute that running in was probably a bad idea. “Y-yes?”

Victor and someone else stood by the window, deep in a conversation. He turned around, taking in the sight of Yuuri, one eyebrow raised. “I’m going to need ten or fifteen skirts. Ask Yuri about my new coat.” Then he rattled off a list of items all of which went in one ear and treacherously out the other. As he did this his eyes took Yuuri in from his head and down to his feet where they stayed. “That’s all.” He turned away and resumed his conversation.

Yuuri rushed out, grabbed the shoes Chris had brought and changed into them hastily. “H-he asked me about… He needs skirts!” He latched onto the word, happy that he’d remembered it. “And a new coat. A-and something else… a lot of something elses, but I…” he closed his eyes and tried to remember. “I think something about food and… maybe a coat?”

“They should bring some coats to choose from before lunch. Did he say what kind of skirts?”

“N-no… I didn’t ask.” He’d been so petrified by the sight of that raised eyebrow that for a moment he’d forgotten how to speak.

“You _never ask_ ,” Yuri hissed. “Okay, I’ll deal with this. Get a piece of paper and a pen. I have more errands for you.”

 

Yuuri ran in an hour and a half later to find the first assistant going through a whole rack of coats and mumbling quietly to himself. “No… he has one like this already. And he’s got this one in camel.” They all looked the same to Yuuri, but he stood next to coat rack, hoping he’d be able to tell them apart better this way.

“He… um… seems to have a thing for coats,” Yuuri said for something to say. He’d only ever owned two coats at one time and Yuri made it sound like Victor owned at least a hundred.

“No, actually, he has a thing for silk handkerchiefs. He always keeps one tucked into his top pocket with his signature pattern. He patented that pattern to be the only one allowed to wear it.” Yuuri noticed for the first time that the first assistant had a patterned handkerchief tucked into his breast pocket.

Yuri gave a curt nod the moment he noticed the attention he was getting. “As his assistant I’m allowed to have the same pattern and you will too… if you ever wear anything that deserves that honour…” There was a look of disgust on his face and Yuuri shifted uneasily.

“You need to understand, Yuuri, that we have different jobs - assuming you get through the probationary period. You fetch coffee and answer the phone. I’m in charge of Victor’s schedule and I get to go with him to Paris.” Yuri straightened up when he said this.

_Paris? Why are they going to Paris?_

Yuri saw that, once again, he would need to explain and added, “For Fashion Week. You get to meet all of the big name designers, get lots of free clothes and see anyone who’s anyone, basically.”

Yuuri nodded.

“This one!” Yuri picked out a coat based on some internal criteria. “Take the rest of these away.”

Yuuri rushed to do as he was told. When he came back Mila was in the office, chatting with Yuri.

“I get 30 minutes for lunch,” Yuri said, “and you get 15. Yuuri, you’re chained to that desk until I get back!”

Yuuri dropped into his seat as the door closed behind the first assistant and his friend.

“I still can’t believe it! What on Earth is he _wearing_?”

“His grandfather’s clothes!”

The sound of laughter echoed down the hallway.


	4. Argyle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a fashion major so I apologize for any errors in the fashion history here. Just pretend I made them up for this AU and in this universe that's how it all happened.

When Yuri returned from his lunch break he brought Yuuri an ID card with a photo the second assistant had never posed for.

“How?”

“It’s from the security cameras,” Yuri told him in the same tone someone tells another person that the cake they got was raspberry. “Just so you know, they’re everywhere in this building.” He considered this sentence. “ _Nearly_ everywhere.” He saw the horrified look on Yuuri’s face and went on, “There have been some problems with people stealing stuff from the shoots, apparently the editors and messengers love to help themselves to all kinds of stuff. So now they track everyone.”

 _What is this? 1984?_ “What do you mean by ‘track’?”

“The cameras let them see where you are at any given moment and the cards give them the rest.” He sat down at his desk and started going through his emails with a bored look on his face. “I’m not sure if anyone is actually watching the cameras, but they track the time you swiped to get in and the time you swiped to get out. That’s how they know if you’re at work or not. So, if you ever have to be out – and you never will unless something really awful happens – but if you do, you will give me your card and I will swipe it for you. And you will do the same for me. So we get paid for all the days we miss.” Then he added, “Everyone does it.”

Yuuri couldn’t get over the initial Big Brother announcement to digest the newest information. His face seemed to be stuck in one expression.

“So guard it with your life,” Yuri went on. “Because while you’re here this basically _is_ your life. You can buy food in the dining room with this too, since after you put money on it it’s basically like a debit card. And that’s how they know what you eat.”

“What? But what does it matter what I eat?”

Yuri gave him an ‘are you kidding me?’ look and went on as if Yuuri hadn’t said anything. “You can buy other things in the building itself: the newspapers and magazines at the stand…” He started to type something. “And you’ll need to swipe it to go to the gym.”

After several minutes he looked up at Yuuri. “Not hungry?”

“W-what? Yes.”

“The run-through is at 12:30,” Yuri explained.

“R-run-through?”

Yuri groaned. One of the phones rang and as he reached for it he said, “the editors bring in options for the shoot and Victor chooses. So everyone is panicking.” He picked up the phone and made a gesture for Yuuri to leave. “Victor Nikiforov’s office?”

 

When Yuuri Katsuki entered the dining room the first thing he noticed was that everyone was gathered in one area, leaving a whole stand free. The second thing he noticed was that everyone was crowding around the salad bar where a specially trained chef would make them each a custom salad that contained just the right amount of leafy greens of whatever type the customer wanted. The third thing he noticed was that the free stand offered nothing more offensive than soup that was served by a very determined-looking chef that seemed to not care about the fact that everyone was shunning him.

The last thing Yuuri noticed was the group of gossipers who studied each person who walked out of the elevator, giving them either a single up and down look if their outfit was deemed on the lower scale or two up and down looks if the outfit merited more attention. Yuuri had missed the reaction he got, but he could guess what it was just by the fact that they pointedly avoided looking in his direction.

The dining room of the Elias-Clarke building was well known for its incredible food quality and selection (as well as being low fat or entirely fat-free, low sodium, and low carb, with the soup being the only exception to the rule), but Yuuri wouldn’t learn about this until much later.

He remembered the cameras, wondered briefly if there was something wrong with the soup (or if some kind of punishment was handed out to anyone who ate it) and headed for it anyway. He didn’t have time for a choice.

“Clam chowder. Interesting choice.” Yuuri looked up and saw Chris standing in front of him. “Also an excellent source of carbs and…”

Yuuri sighed. All his life he suffered from the fact that he gained weight really easily. He’d gone to great lengths to lose quite a lot for his previous job, but now he was too tired to care. He smiled politely instead.

“Don’t the people here eat anything?”

“Not since 2 became the new 4 and 0 became the new 2.”

Yuuri winced and said nothing. Instead, he scooped up some soup with his spoon, deciding to eat on the go. Murphy’s Law kicked in and some of it dripped down his sweater.

“Oh, shoot!”

“I’m sure you have plenty more poly blend where that came from,” Chris said.

Yuuri dabbed at his sweater with a napkin. “Okay, you think my clothes are hideous. I get it. But I'm not going to be in fashion forever so I don’t see the why I should change myself just because I have this job.”

Chris smiled. “Yes, that’s true. That’s what this multi-billion-dollar industry is all about, isn’t it? Inner beauty.”

Chris’s phone rang and he stopped to put his tray down and answer the call. There was a resigned look on his face before he even said anything. “Yes?” He smiled sourly. “He’s right here… Of course.”

He hung up and took the tray from Yuuri’s hands. “Victor moved the run-through back 15 minutes.”

“Which means?”

“You’re already late. Come on.” He dumped the soup in the garbage can and headed for the elevator.

Yuuri rushed after him, just barely keeping up with what was happening.

The elevator arrived with a ding and they stepped in. An elderly man followed them into the elevator just before the doors closed.

“Mr. Feltsman.”

“Chris.”

They nodded companionably at each other.

“Issue going well?”

“Oh yes,” Chris lied. “Our best September ever.”

“I heard Victor killed the autumn jackets and pulled up the Sedona shoot.” Mr. Feltsman’s expression was hard to read. “What’s that costing me?”

“About $300 000,” Chris said as if he’d said $10.

“Must’ve been some lousy jackets,” Mr. Feltsman said and smiled. “Yakov Feltsman.” He held his hand out to Yuuri.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Chris said as they shook hands. “This is Yuuri Katsuki, Victor’s new assistant.”

“Looks like he finally got what he always wanted – two assistants with the same name.”

The elevator stopped and Yakov got out with a “gentlemen” and a nod.

Chris waited for the doors to close before explaining, “Chairman of Elias-Clarke, Yakov Feltsman. He took that rather well. Last time Victor did this they had a 2 hour argument.”

The elevator arrived at the top floor and Chris let Yuuri exit first.

They walked into the room where Victor was with all of the editors. Yuri Plisetsky stood off to one side. He kept walking to the door and eyeing the phones on the desks. There were racks of clothes at different ends of the room. Victor walked around, going through what the editors had brought. “No, no, I’ve seen all this before.” He went through all of the clothes again. “Are you trying to reinvent the drop waist?”

The editors eyed each other nervously.

“Watch and learn,” Chris whispered to Yuuri.

Without thinking, Yuuri pulled a small pad of paper from his pocket and watched Victor go through the clothes rack and wondered if there was a special class that taught people how to do that as gracefully as he did. Victor turned away, as if the sight of the clothes had offended him and noticed Chris in the room for the first time. They exchanged a look.

“Where are all the other dresses?” he asked one of the editors.

The woman tried to smile. “W-we have some more here.” She signaled to another woman to bring out another clothes rack.

“Where are the sponsors? Why is no one ready?”

Chris folded his arms over his chest with an unimpressed look on his face.

The editors scrambled madly around the room, taking one clothing rack away and bringing in a new one and then showing what they thought were the best clothes from it.

Victor shook his head at each one. “No, I’m just baffled. Why is it so impossible to put together a decent run-through? You had hours and hours to prepare.” He waved the clothes away. “Are we going to have to start from the beginning?”

This terrified the editors even more and more clothing was brought in.

Chris whispered, “Time to bring out the big guns,” into Yuuri’s ear.

The editors looked at him, then again at Victor and even more clothes were brought in.

Yuuri was starting to feel blinded by all of the colours. He’d barely slept and hadn’t eaten for several hours and now his senses were overwhelmed by all of the clothing that was being paraded in front of him. Surely this was everything there ever was in the world!

Victor watched like a hawk until he finally found something that caught his eye. “This one.”

The editors stopped and exchanged a look of relief.

“We’ll start with this.” He held up one of the dresses. “What do you think Chris?”

Chris’s face relaxed into a smile. “You know me, get me some lace and I’m on board. Classy and never quite goes out of fashion.”

“And you don’t think…”

“That it’s similar to the Lacroix from July? I don’t think so. Not with the right accessories.”

“Where are the belts for this dress?”

The editors ran around, but there was a sense that not all was lost. They’d found hope, hope that they would survive to the end of the day, that some miracle would pull them through.

Yuuri watched in amazement. If Victor had been a general, he would’ve had soldiers die gladly for him.

One of them held up two belts of the same colour. “It’s so tough to decide. They’re both so different.”

Yuuri snorted. He wrote something on the notepad and then realized that the room had gone quiet and that everyone was staring at him.

“Is something funny?” Victor asked.

“Er…” Yuuri looked around nervously. “Well … it’s just that those belts look completely identical to me… um, obviously I’m still learning about this stuff and...” He froze under Victor’s stare.

“This _stuff_?” Victor repeated. Yuuri flinched from the anger in his voice. “Oh, okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you.” He handed the dress to Chris, crossed the room and stopped two steps away from Yuuri.

“You go to your closet and pick out, say, that lumpy sweater, for instance,” he made a gesture taking his clothes in. “because you’re trying to tell the world you take yourself too seriously to care about what you wear.”

Yuuri was rooted to the sport as Victor circled around him.

“But what you don’t know is that the diamond pattern you picked out at random isn’t any old diamond pattern, but Argyle: a pattern from a clan Campbell in Scotland, popularized by the designers of _Pringle of Scotland_ in the 1920s and brought back in 2012 by Ralph Lauren himself. And I’m not even going to talk about the Argyle socks by _Brooks Brothers_.”

He stopped behind Yuuri.

“I think we need a jacket.”

Chris stepped in and helped the editors pick out several options. For a while they were busy in their corner, arguing in hushed voices.

Suddenly Victor was in front of Yuuri, towering over him. There was a cold smile on his face and somehow the sight of it was worse than that of a frown.

Yuuri felt fear shoot up through his body. The fear was mixed with some other feeling he couldn’t identify.

“And then it filtered down through the department stores and trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that Agyle represents millions of dollars and countless jobs. And it’s sort of comical how you think that you’ve made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact,” Victor stepped back and Yuuri discovered he could breathe again, “you’re wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of ‘stuff.’”

 

“And then I said, no, I couldn't see the difference between the two absolutely identical belts. You should’ve seen the look he gave me. I swear, I thought the flesh was gonna melt off his face. It’s like he’s not happy unless everyone around him is panicked, nauseous or suicidal. And the whole time everyone stared at me as if I’d suggested we eat the stupid things!”

Phichit listened to Yuuri’s story, laughing himself to the point of crying. He rubbed the tears from his eyes.

“It’s not funny. Really, Phichit!”

“You’re right – it’s hilarious!”

Yuuri watched Phichit roll up with his arms around his stomach. His laughter was very contagious and Yuuri found his face splitting into a smile. The embarrassment was still there, however. Sitting at his desk afterwards he’d wished desperately that the day would end faster. He would never forget the way Yuri ignored him for the rest of the afternoon, or the way Mila giggled when she dropped by in the evening and Yuri told her all about it.

After a while the laughter died down.

“Is it the same at your magazine?” Yuuri asked, hoping to gently steer the conversation to a safer topic.

“Oh no, we’re much more relaxed… until about 5 days before the deadline and then everyone runs around like headless chickens,” Phichit grinned. “It’s kind of funny. Not as funny as _Runway_ , though.”

Yuuri sighed. This was going to be another one of those things he would never live down, he just knew it. Then he remembered the stack of magazines he’d seen on Victor’s table. Somewhere near the top was _Chic_.

“He reads your magazine, by the way,” he said.

“I expect he does.” Phichit got up and poured himself another glass of wine. They’d had a lazy dinner of leftovers and a bottle of wine Phichit claimed he’d gotten as a present.

“It’s my job, apparently, to get him all his magazines every morning,” Yuuri said. “I don’t really get it. You work in a fashion magazine, so why do you need to buy other magazines? So you don’t copy their ideas? Or for inspiration, or what? I mean it’s just clothes!”

“You need to stay up to date on the current trends, of course,” Phichit explained. “And it’s more complicated than that for Victor.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he’s in charge of a _women’s_ magazine,” Phichit said meaningfully.

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, he has to dress according to the current fashion, right? So he’d have to read men’s magazines as well.”

Yuuri nodded, “Oh, that’s _Fantastic Man_ , of course!” Then he frowned. “Yuri seems to hate the main editor, for some reason.”

“Really? Why?”

“No idea. He just keeps calling him an idiot.”

Phichit downed his glass. “More wine?”

“No, I don’t think I want another hangover, thanks.” Yuuri got up and went to do the dishes. “Sorry for staying in your apartment for so long. I promise I will move out as soon as I can.”

“There’s no rush. It’s nice not to have the place all to myself.” He looked at Yuuri’s rolled up sleeves. “What’s that on your arm?”

Yuuri looked down and blushed. “Ah! That’s from this morning.”

Phichit took his arm and studied the writing on it. “One latte, no foam, lots of sugar…”

_And he told me this morning he never took sugar in his coffee! How did I get that wrong?_

Yuuri pulled his hand away and returned to the dishes. “I just don’t get it. The amount of time and energy that these people spend on these insignificant, minute details. And for what? So that tomorrow they can spend another $300,000 reshooting something that was fine to begin with just to sell people things they don’t actually need. Is that even normal? They all act like they’re curing cancer or something. And they all worship Victor like he’s some sort of god.”

Phichit fiddled with his glass thoughtfully. “Are you still sure you want this job, Yuuri? This was just your first day.”

“I’ll stick it out. I won’t let him get to me. I just have to stick it out for one year and then I can go anywhere.”

Phichit smiled and patted Yuuri on the shoulder.


	5. Makkachin

The weeks that followed seemed to consist of nothing but mad running around. Over time Yuuri learned that, as far as Victor was concerned, it was better to do something wrong and spend a lot of money fixing it than not do it at all. This meant that he would run to the same spot several times during the course of one day. It took three days for him to learn the name of the head of every department, the name of Victor’s housekeeper and even the names of several of the major store owners.

One day Victor sprung the worst errand to date. “Yuuri, my car needs to be picked up from the place and dropped off at the garage,” he ordered, sitting behind his desk. “Attend to it immediately, since I plan to drive it tonight. That’s all.”

Yuuri smiled to hide the sense of rising panic.

_The place? Not “my place”? Where is it then? And take it where exactly? His apartment?_

“Yuri,” he said, walking up to the first assistant, “where is Victor’s car and where does he live?”

“Talk to Lilia,” was the only reply he got before Yuri got on the phone to argue with someone.

Lilia was Victor’s housekeeper and one of the strictest women Yuuri had ever met. Every time he saw her he felt like he was back in kindergarten, trying to recite the alphabet and not wet the bed. Conversations with her over the phone, surprisingly enough, weren’t bad, but in person were an utter disaster as far as Yuuri was concerned. For some odd reason she had a soft spot for him, but that didn’t help: the permanent sour look on her face terrified him to the very depths of his soul. Yuuri had never seen her and Victor together in the same room and always wondered what that was like.

“Yes?” came her clipped response as always. “Oh, it’s you, Yuuri,” there was warmth in her voice now. For some reason caller ID wasn’t something she believed in, so each time she sounded surprised when she realized Yuuri was the one who was calling.

“Hello, yes. Um… Victor wants me to pick up his car. Do you know where it is?”

“Oh, yes. It’s at a dealership. The driver is unavailable right now, I’m afraid, so you’ll have to drive it. Hold on, I’ll get you the address.”

_Driving? Me? Why me?_

 

32 minutes later he was stuck in a traffic jam in the middle of (and probably the size of) New York, swearing at everything around him. Manual! Why did it have to be manual? But the absolute worst – in Yuuri’s opinion – was the colour. Sure, it made you noticeable and, theoretically, meant that other drivers would see and try not to hit him, but he stuck out like a sore thumb amid the other cars on the street.

Pink. It just had to be pink.

Maybe Victor had an odd sense of humour and he thought getting a nice vintage Cadillac – with damned _manual drive_ – custom painted pink was funny. Well, Yuuri didn’t think it was funny and, after enough comments on his driving as well as the colour of the car from the other drivers, he was starting to really hate it. In fact, he was starting to hate everything, with the car’s owner at the top of the list.

And then his phone rang.

_Speak of the devil._

“Yuuri!” The cheery tone did nothing to help Yuuri’s growing anger. “Did you get my car yet? I need you to pick up Makkachin.” Click. No hello, no good-bye, no thank you, not even a small pause to let Yuuri answer the question he’d asked.

Yuuri swore, took a deep breath, counted to ten and dialed Lilia.

“Hello, Lilia, yes it’s me. Yes, I got the car. Who is Makkachin and where can I find him?”

There was a short pause as he took in her answer. Then it took all of his self-control not to swear. Because of that whole kindergarten teacher thing he always fought down the urge to swear within her earshot. Even words like ‘crap’ were out of the question.

“Aw, great!” He mouthed several different words he wouldn’t say aloud and, once that was out of his system, went on, “A dog. He wants me to go get his dog, in _this_ car and drive it to _his house_.” He let out a long sigh.

“You’ll absolutely love his dog,” Lilia assured him. “He is the friendliest dog in the world.”

_Which means that he’ll be all over me while I try to drive a car I really, really can’t._ “Wonderful.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice this time.

For most of his life he’d wanted a dog, but his parents never let him have one. Then he went to university and, between classes, parties and work, just didn’t have the time for one.

Even a mere week ago he would’ve been excited at the prospect of picking up a dog. Now the stress and frustration of driving this car was starting to get to him. His palms were sweaty and he had to keep wiping them on his pants so that his hands wouldn’t slide off the wheel. He tried not to think about what he would look like when he returned to the office.

 

Yuuri managed to pick up Makkachin without killing himself or scratching the car through some kind of miracle and then drop the dog off at Victor’s apartment, along with the car. He took a cab back and was almost through the doors of the Elias-Clarke building when his phone rang.

He felt his supply of miracles run out as he recognized the ring tone. “Yes?”

“Yuuri, where is my car?”

“At your apartment.”

“Why is it there? I told you I needed it.”

“Uh –”

“15 minutes.”

15 minutes? The cab ride had taken 20 minutes, so how on Earth was he going to bring the car in 15 minutes?

 

An hour later Yuuri stood outside the car, holding the door open while Victor stepped in. To his great relief, the driver had returned just as Yuuri had made his way to Victor’s apartment, which meant that he didn’t have to drive. He did, however, get sucked into meeting Victor with the car.

_You’d think he was from the aristocracy or something. Honestly! It’s just clothes! It’s just fashion! Why do people care so much? Why does everyone start gushing the moment I mention his name?_

“Yuuri,” Victor said from inside the car, “I will need lunch and I have left a list with Yuri for you to take care of.”

Yuuri reached out to close the door.

“And have you picked up my dry cleaning?”

“I will do that right now.”

“That’s all.”

The car drove off.

_If only that_ was _all… Maybe he’ll get into an accident and I will never have to see him again._ Yuuri walked back to the building. _Maybe he will just randomly choke on the gourmet take out I order for him every day and I won’t have to hear his voice or see his face._

And then he stopped as he realized just what was going through his mind. He swore, kicked a pebble on the ground and went inside the building.

_At this rate I might even end up killing him myself._

 

“Victor wants that new book. The one everyone keeps talking about,” Yuri said the moment Yuuri stepped into the office.

“Which is?” Yuuri asked, trying not to think about the fact that he hadn’t eaten for several hours.

“How the hell do I know?”

Yuuri sighed. Phichit would know, but he didn’t want to disturb him at work. _Let’s see… it’s probably a bestseller. No one ever talks about classical literature, so if I get him the 10 most popular bestsellers, it must be one of them._

He headed straight for the computer to see what the Internet thought about this. He printed off a list of the top _20_ bestsellers and headed for a bookstore, stopping only to grab something to eat on the way.

“Yuuri, what are all these books doing on my desk?” Victor demanded from his office.

Yuuri ran in. “T-the book you asked for...”

“I already read all of these. Why didn’t you get me the one I asked for?”

“The one you asked for being…?”

“I told you: the one people keep talking about. They won’t stop talking about it.”

“Yes. Right. That one.” _That narrows it down a lot,_ Yuuri thought sarcastically as he turned around in the doorway and did his best to keep the smile fixed on his face.

 

With Google’s help he tracked down the 20 most discussed books and returned to the office to drop them all off.

Victor looked at the books and then up at Yuuri. “I asked for one book.”

Yuuri didn’t say anything. The 20 most discussed books had taken 3 hours to track down and he had a feeling that if he opened his mouth the first word out of it would be a curse.

Victor walked around the desk and shuffled through the pile. “It’s not here.”

_Oh, what the hell!_ “What is the name of the book?”

“I told you: that new Harry Potter one,” he returned to his seat behind the desk.

_You damn well didn’t._ Yuuri turned around and went to get the book.

 

Two days later during one of the rare pauses in Yuuri’s mad dash through the streets of New York and bright and early in the morning Victor dropped the book off on Yuuri’s desk.

“It was awful,” he said as if it had all been Yuuri’s fault, as if Yuuri could go back in time, edit it and make it so that when Victor read it he would enjoy it.

Yuuri merely took it and – with a sigh just loud enough to be slightly audible in the office, but not loud enough to be told off for – placed it in the bottom drawer of his desk. It would soon join the other books he’d bought in the donation pile to the nearest library.

 

One evening Yuri placed a book that, by its size alone, could’ve been a novel by Dickens, but wasn’t, on to Yuuri’s desk. “It’s your turn with the Book now. Here it is just before I hand it over to the art department.”

The Book (and you could hear the capital ‘B’ in the way Yuri said it) wasn’t so much a physical book as a collection of pages bound together and containing the holy of holies: a mock-up of the current issue of Runway. After a long day of consulting with Victor the art department would craft a new layout and add any new photos that came in. The editors would make the approved changes and then get the art assistants to put all of the new pages into the appropriate pages of the Book and then – once everyone was done with it and usually really late into the evening – someone would take it to Victor’s apartment, where he would mark it up with comments all over again. So far that lucky someone had been Yuri, but the day had come for Yuuri to take the honour.

“This is very simple, so even you can’t get it wrong,” Yuri said. “You take it to his apartment along with the dry cleaning. You put the dry cleaning in the closet and you leave the book on the table with the flowers. There will be no one there, since Victor has an important dinner this evening, so I don’t have to tell you not to talk to anyone. But, just in case you end up staying very late waiting for the Book: _do not talk to anyone in the apartment_.”

 

To Yuuri’s great luck the Book was done early that evening. He accepted it, already making evening plans in his head, and ran to grab a cab. The trip to Victor’s apartment was spent imagining how wonderful it would be to lie on the sofa and do absolutely nothing. Victor had an important dinner, which meant that the probability of him calling Yuuri with another inane request was very low. He could actually have some free time to himself and to relax. If only he could turn his phone off, it would be perfect.

He was starting to develop a Pavlovian response to the sound of a phone ringing. It didn’t matter whose phone it was or what the ringtone was, he would always have the same reaction: nervous sweating, fists clenching and a three-word-long curse on his lips. Without a doubt the telephone was the absolute worst invention in all of humanity’s history. He hated Alexander Graham Bell with every fibre of his being.

He got to the apartment building, into the elevator (with the most harassed elevator man he’d ever seen and he’d seen a few over the past few weeks) and then up to Penthouse A. He opened the door with the key Yuri had entrusted him with and peered inside. The lights were all on, but the absence of noise suggested no one was home.

And then Makkachin came bounding down the hallway, nearly knocking Yuuri off his feet.

“Yes, yes, hello! Good boy!”

Did that count as talking to someone? He didn’t know. He left the dry cleaning in the first closet he found and the Book on the first table with flowers he saw. He was too tired to debate which table was worthy of the honour. He locked the door and rushed back to the cab as quickly as he could.

And then he was home. He was free. He could not do whatever he wanted. He dropped onto the couch, not bothering to change, and closed his eyes.

Judging by the singing, Phichit was in the kitchen, making dinner.

The world faded into blissful darkness.

Ring!

Yuuri’s eyes snapped open.

Ring!

He felt sweat pour down his face. He wiped his palms on his pants and reached for his pocket.

“V- er, Yuuri speaking.”

“Yuuri, I need the piece of paper on my desk,” Victor said and hung up.

Yuuri stared up at the ceiling. He tried counting to ten, he tried thinking happy thoughts (for some reason he couldn’t think of any), he tried… Ah, hell!

He called Yuri. “Where did Victor go for dinner?” Now _he_ wasn’t bothering with saying hello, just great!

Yuri gave him the address and hung up.

With a sigh, Yuuri got up and made for the door. He was still in his coat, so he didn’t even need to pull it on.

“Where are you going?” Phichit asked, coming out of the kitchen.

“Victor just called,” Yuuri answered. “He forgot something at the office and he needs me to pick it up and bring it to him. He’s having an important dinner right now, so I have to go over there.”

“Not dressed like that you don’t!”

“What?” Yuuri froze in the doorway.

Phichit grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back in as Yuuri protested. He protested all the way back to the wardrobe room and all through Phichit’s search for the perfect outfit for Yuuri. He went silent when Phichit presented him with a simple suit and a long black coat.

“Nothing flashy, obviously,” Phichit said, “but this is what you need, I’m sure of it.”

“ _Really_ , Phichit.”

“Don’t argue, Yuuri. If your editor is having an important dinner, you’ll need to dress like this just so they let you in to talk to him.”

Yuuri sighed. “Alright.”

“Now, this is important, so pay attention: get a folder for your important papers and carry it in your hand so it’s visible. When they ask you what you want make it sound as urgent as you can, or they will try to brush you off. Take a cab there. Do you want me to call one?”

“I’ll be fine, really.” Yuuri took the suit and went to get changed. “How do you know this anyway?” He called over his shoulder.

“A friend of mine got turned out trying to do what you are about to do.”

Once Yuuri was ready, Phichit circled him to fix up all the little details and then dealt with Yuuri’s hair.

“Okay, now you’re ready.”

Yuuri looked at the time, panicked and very nearly ran, but Phichit blocked his way.

“No running.”

Yuuri left the apartment at a sedate speed, caught a cab and made his way to the Elias-Clarke building, followed immediately by the fanciest restaurant in New York.

The waiters all looked him up and down, but he seemed to pass their internal tests and so they let him through.

Victor sat with four other people at a table and laughed at a story one of them was recounting. The other three exchanged happy smiles. The speaker got to the punchline and Victor burst out into louder laughter.

Yuuri stood still, unable to interrupt.

“But the best scene –” Victor started, but the other man interrupted, having spotted Yuuri.

“I’m sorry, Victor, I think this young man wants your attention.”

Victor turned around to see who the young man in question was and smiled. It was a genuinely warm smile. “Ah, Yuuri! Everyone, this is my second assistant Yuuri who has kindly agreed to take time out of his evening to bring me some important documents.” He stood up and put an arm around Yuuri.

Yuuri stared at him in surprise.

“I thought Yuri was short and blond.”

“That’s my first assistant.”

“You have two assistants with the same name?”

“Yes, isn’t it convenient?”

“I think you mean _confusing_ , not convenient. Why don’t you sit with us, Yuuri?”

Yuuri looked at Victor to see what he thought of this idea.

Victor merely smiled.

“I… er… was only coming to drop this off.” He held up the folder in his hand to demonstrate.

“Don’t worry about it,” the man reassured him. “We’ll get the waiter to bring you another chair and a menu. Or is there something specific that you’d like?”

Yuuri looked at Victor again. Still he got no indication of what his boss thought. “Alright.”

They called a waiter over and got Yuuri a chair.

_This is it, if I embarrass him now I will be fired for sure._

“I’m Stéphane,” one of the editors introduced himself.

“ _Vogue_ ,” Victor whispered just loud enough for Yuuri to hear.

The others introduced themselves and Victor appended each introduction with the name of their magazine. Yuuri discovered he was sitting at the same table as the editors-in-chief of _Vogue_ , _Runway_ , _Harper’s Bazaar_ , _Chic_ and _GQ_. All of these names now meant something to him at least because he brought those magazines to Victor’s desk every day.

“I still think the ending was awful,” Stéphane said, returning to the subject of their earlier conversation.

Victor shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. I’ve read worse.”

“What do you think, Yuuri?”

Yuuri was suddenly conscious of the fact that Victor’s arm was resting on the back of his chair. He slowly lowered his fork. “I… which book are we talking about?”

“ _The Cursed Child_.”

“Oh. Um… I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.” He snuck a look at Victor’s face.

Victor’s expression hadn’t changed.

“You simply must!” Stéphane insisted. “Isn’t the Harry Potter series great?”

They had a long conversation about the characters of the book which later turned into a serious debate. Victor participated actively in the debate, but not as much as Stéphane.

Yuuri concentrated on his food and said very little.

The editors made jokes and drank wine. Yuuri stuck to a glass of water. When dinner ended the waiter brought each of them a bill in black leather holders.

Stéphane placed a hand over Yuuri’s bill. “Don’t worry about it. I invited you to join us, so I’ll pay for you.”

“No, let me. He’s _my_ assistant, after all,” Victor cut in. Then he smiled at the waiter. “Add it to my bill.” He took Yuuri’s bill, placed it over his own and put his credit card inside.

They left the restaurant together. Victor waited for Yuuri to get a cab before taking his car home.

 

Phichit watched Yuuri walk in. “So how did it go? You were gone for more than two hours. I was starting to get worried.”

Yuuri stared at him in disbelief. “That… he…” He dropped onto the sofa. “I just don’t get it.”

Phichit sat down beside him. “What did he do this time?”

“I mean he’s always so cold and overbearing. He’s always so demanding and won’t take excuses, but, _my god,_ when he wants to turn the charm on he really does!”


	6. Sensible

The following morning the world fell into its usual mold with no trace of the shape it had had the previous evening. Victor dumped his coat on Yuuri’s desk and went on like always, demanding more, unsatisfied with everything.

“Yuuri!” he called out and the second assistant bolted into his room, not even bothering to look at the first assistant for confirmation that he was the one that was required. “Talk to Emil. Is that shoot finished yet?”

Yuuri ran to one of the lower levels where Emil worked on his shoots. He barged in, stopped, turned bright red, lowered his eyes and kept going.

The models giggled.

“Come on, girls!” Emil called. Then he spotted Yuuri. “Ah! There you are, Yuuri! Good morning! I’ve been waiting for you to drop by.” He stopped talking and took in the look on his face. “What’s the matter? Haven’t you seen women in lingerie before?”

“Evidently not,” one of the models said and everyone giggled louder.

“I… I’m just here from…  um… to um…” Yuuri got really flustered as they all gathered around him. He cleared his throat. “Victor wants to know if the shoot is finished.” He forced himself to look Emil directly in the eye and wished the blush would go away.

For some reason the models wouldn’t stop giggling.

“Alright, everyone, calm down!” Emil exclaimed, clapping his hands together, but there was a big happy smile on his face.

There were contradictory rumours about Emil. Some said he was seeing one of the models, Sara, while others insisted that he was actually going out with her brother, Michele, who worked for the bank that took up the bottom two floors of the Elias-Clarke building. To make matters even more confusing, Mila’s name also appeared in these rumours, but Yuuri could never make any sense of the half-heard conversations in the elevator to understand how she was connected to anything else.

“Erm… so what should I tell him?”

“We’ll be done soon enough,” he said. “Do you want to help?”

“I really…”

The models grabbed him by the arms. “Please?”

 

When Yuuri returned to the office a half hour later Yuri gave him an odd look.

“Where have you been?”

“Helping Emil with the photoshoot.”

“You mean the _Victoria Secret_ one?”

“Yes.”

“You have –”

“Yuuri!” Victor stepped out of his office. “Tell Chris to be here in 15 minutes.” He stopped and stared at his second assistant. “We do a serious job here,” he said in a cold voice. “I don’t want to see such improper conduct ever again.” He turned away and left.

“What was that?” Yuuri asked.

“There’s lipstick on your cheek, moron,” Yuri hissed.

Yuuri’s face turned the same shade of red as the lipstick and he rushed to find a mirror and wipe it off.

When several minutes later it became obvious that it wasn’t going to come off so easily Yuuri started to panic.

With a sigh Yuri walked up to him and handed him a wet towel. Yuuri reached out for it, but then Yuri changed his mind and wiped the lipstick off Yuuri’s cheek himself.

“They always do that,” Yuri told him and turned away to return to his desk. “For some reason they think it’s funny.”

“Why?”

“How should I know?”

Yuuri dropped into his seat and called Chris. “Any plans for tonight?” he asked as he waited for Chris to pick up. It was Friday and Victor was several hours away from flying out of the country on a two week vacation. It was a break the entire building had been waiting for for months.

“Yes,” Yuri said, his tone suggesting that they were not up for discussion.

Yuuri heard Chris’ voice and tried to forget Yuri’s tone. “Hello Chris, Victor wants to talk to you.”

“On my way.”

Yuuri hung up and sighed. “My parents are coming to see me today. Mari is too busy, unfortunately, but my parents are in New York for the weekend.” He sighed a second time and looked out the window.

Fate, so cruel to Yuuri lately, took pity on him and decided to send him a warning. The skies were dark, far darker than they usually were before noon in November.

Yuuri, sleep deprived and in a mental state not too different from that of a zombie, ignored the warning.

Chris arrived, making his usual jokes at the two Yuris. Victor returned soon after. They retreated for a long conference in his office.

Unwilling to give up, Fate tried again. Yuuri raised his head and stared out the window once more. A light snow started to fall outside. He smiled, remembering a childhood filled with snow angels and snowmen, and returned to going through his emails.

Despite the earlier incident, he was in a good mood. Victor would leave and, at least for a while, his load would lighten. He wouldn’t have to stay late, waiting for the Book. He wouldn’t have to fetch food or coffee. He could relax.

Fate shrugged and gave up. Outside the snow fell harder.

After two hours Victor left for the airport and everyone went home.

 

“How have you been?” Mr. Katsuki asked. “I barely ever hear from you. All I get are these brief emails. Your mom and I are starting to get worried.”

“We are,” Mrs. Katsuki agreed. “Yuuri, look at you! You’ve lost so much weight and you look so tired! What have they been doing to you at work?”

Yuuri did his best to look happy. “I’m fine, mom, dad. Really, I am.”

Mr. and Mrs. Katsuki sat in front of their son in a small restaurant, waiting for their food to arrive. Yuuri tried to act normal. He did his best to ignore the sounds of other people’s phones and to not imagine what his coworkers would say about the menu.

His parents were really troubled by the changes they found in him. They went on at length about how he was throwing himself away on a job like his.

“Yuuri, are you really sure you want to do this?” his mother insisted.

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because it makes no sense. You always said you were going to be a writer for _The New Yorker_ , why are you settling for a fashion magazine?”

“I’m not settling. It’s just for one year, honest! If I can –”

His phone rang.

His hands clenched, sweat poured down his back and he pulled it out of his pocket, trembling. “I’m sorry, it’s my boss,” he explained to his parents.

“Yuuri! My flight got cancelled and I’m stuck here. I need to leave right now.” There was that voice again.

_I need_ you _to leave right now._ “Yes, Victor, I will take care of it.”

An hour of phone calls to various airlines, the airport, as well as a vast majority of Victor’s friends who owned private jets confirmed one thing: nothing was flying in or out of JFK.

“Yuuri, dear, surely he’ll understand,” his mom tried to calm him down.

“He won’t. He really, really won’t.” Yuuri panicked. He got up and ran outside only to be greeted by the sight of the chaos.

There was 4 feet of snow already on the ground and more just kept piling up. It was no wonder nothing was flying out. In the current conditions nothing was going anywhere in any way at all: wheels or wings, it was stuck. He couldn’t even get Victor a car to the nearest airport to fly out of there.

“Oh my god!” Yuuri exclaimed, grabbing his head. “He’s going to kill me!”

“Yuuri!” his mother followed after him. “Yuuri, there’s nothing you can do against this. Be sensible, come on.”

_Be sensible._ But it was far too late for that.

 

The following morning everything was clear and Yuuri came in to work, expecting that Victor’s flight had gone overnight and definitely _not_ expecting to find the man himself sitting in his office, an angry look on his face.

“Yuuri,” he said, “for several months now I’ve looked forward to taking this vacation, to getting away from this busy city and relaxing on the beach. Every year I go without fail and this year I find myself stuck in the airport and then stuck on my way home and I can’t get anywhere at all.” He sounded as if Yuuri had given him a physical wound. “I always hire fashionable assistants, people who are passionate about the magazine, not someone who can’t even find a suitable tie to wear, but so often they prove to be disappointing.” He sighed, “And so stupid. And then you came with your impressive résumé and your big speech and I thought you would be different, but you ended up disappointing me more than any of the others.”

_This is it_ , Yuuri thought, _I’m going to be fired. That’s it. It’s over._ “I’m so sorry, Victor, I tried everything I could think of, I really did.”

“Have I asked for something unreasonable?”

There was that whatever-it-was about Victor that made your memory a treacherous one and you forgot all of the grief he ever gave you and made you feel like you were kicking puppies.

“N-no.”

“Of course not.” He shuffled some papers around on his desk. “That’s all.”

Yuuri walked out, feeling ashamed of himself. Victor was right: he hadn’t really put his heart into it. He should’ve known, should’ve anticipated the bad weather. He dropped into his seat, but couldn’t stay there very long.

He went off to find Chris instead.


	7. Phone Numbers

Yuuri found Chris in his usual place, going through photos from various shoots and scribbling something down about each of them. Chris raised his eyes as soon as he heard Yuuri walk in.

“He hates me. He really hates me,” Yuuri said. “I try and I try and it’s not good enough. I don’t get it. He has these ridiculous demands.”

“Are they ridiculous though? Fetch the coffee, get his food and dry cleaning? It seems pretty standard to me,” Chris said.

“And I don’t know what else to do. If I get something right, it’s unacknowledged. I don’t even get a ‘thank you’. But if I get something wrong, he is _vicious_.”

“So quit,” Chris said with a shrug.

“What?”

“Quit.”

“I don’t want to quit. I just…” Yuuri struggled to find the right words. “I just want a little bit of credit that I’m killing myself trying.”

“Be serious, you’re not really trying,” Chris said. “You are whining. What do you want me to say? Poor you, aww. Wake up, Yuuri! It’s time to live in the real world. Victor isn’t just running a little local magazine, he is in charge of the place that published some of the greatest artists of the century! A lot is expected of him and so he expects a lot from those who work for him. If he were to say something was impossible and back down, there would be a hundred people scrambling for his job in seconds!” Chris walked across the room and held out a copy of _Runway_ ’s last month’s issue.

Yuuri took it without thinking.

“What we’re doing here, what we’re creating, is greater than art. Because you live your life in it.” He paused for a moment and frowned. “Well, not you, obviously, but some people. You think this is just a magazine with a lot of pretty pictures? That it’s just about clothes? It’s a beacon of hope. Maybe even now a little boy is saving up his lunch money to buy a copy that he’ll read in secret, or he’s skipping soccer practice to go to sewing class. You have no idea how many legends have walked these halls and, what’s worse, you don’t care. Because this place where so many people would die to work, you only deign to work. And you wonder why he doesn’t kiss you on the forehead and give you a gold star at the end of the day.”

Yuuri stared at him in surprise and then he became aware of a decision he’d already made on his way there.

“Chris, can you do me a favour?”

The art director beamed. “I thought you’d never ask! I’ve been waiting for this since your first day here. Come on!” He motioned for Yuuri to follow him.

They took the elevator to the Wardrobe, which for its size (spanning very nearly an entire floor) truly deserved the capital letter.

Chris went through aisle after aisle with the look of one who knew exactly where everything was (which couldn’t possibly be true, Yuuri reasoned, because people must have moved stuff all the time).

“Let’s see… We can start with a pair of pants…” He paused then nodded to himself. “Yes, I think I will experiment a little. There’s a shoot coming up next week that I want to prepare for…” he muttered just loud enough for Yuuri to hear, but he was probably not talking to him when he said it. “And you’ll need shoes and… you are in desperate need of leather gloves!”

Yuuri could barely keep up. Chris would toss him the next article of clothing as he went and Yuuri would catch it.

He had a bad feeling about this.

Chris led him to one of the fitting rooms in the middle of the floor and ordered Yuuri to get rid of the abomination masquerading itself as his clothes at once.

“Start with this,” he said, taking some of the items from his arms and leaving him with the rest.

“But –”

“You will take what I give you and you will like it.”

Yuuri entered the fitting room and closed the curtain behind him obediently.

_ I’m only doing this for work. It doesn’t mean anything. I might not have any sense of style, but Chris should, so I have to trust him. _ He panicked as he pulled his clothes off. _What if it’s weird to change now? What will people say?_ He remembered Victor’s disapproving face and sighed. _I have to do this._

Yuuri finished changing and stepped out of the fitting room.

“Much better.” Chris circled him and gave him critical up and down looks from different sides. He adjusted the coat, brushed off some lint and smiled. “You should wear short coats and show off that nice bum you’ve got.”

Yuuri’s face went red as he stared at Chris and stammered out something incoherent.

Chris smiled and put a hand companionably on Yuuri’s shoulder. “Don’t go falling in love with me now. I’m in a serious relationship with someone I’m in love with and who loves me back. Although the innocent naïve boy thing you’ve got going for you is very charming.”

“I-I wasn’t…” Yuuri managed to blurt out.

“In fact, you better be careful with your crushes while you’re here,” Chris cautioned in a tone of voice that was only half-serious. “You see the other Yuri is dating a very serious young man, although neither of them seems to realize they’re dating. Georgi was recently dumped by his girlfriend, so I guess he’s available, but I think he’s still suffering from heartbreak. Let’s see…” He listed off a bunch more names, “And Mila is seeing that beautiful model from Italy. What was her name again? Ah yes – Sara. Which leaves…” He thought for a while, “…only Victor, I guess, who has no one at the moment.”

“Really? I thought he’d be married at his age.” He accidentally said the words “his age” in a tone that implied that he thought Victor was an old man.

“Kids these days! You’re not even thirty and you’re already dismissed as old!”

“B-but I thought…” Yuuri stammered.

“Yuuri!” Chris exclaimed, holding up a hand and silencing Yuuri before he could continue. “I hope you’re not about to say something about Victor’s hair. You do not _ever_ talk about grey hair, thinning hair or baldness while in this building, do you understand? In fact, for you it’s probably best to never talk about hair at all. Or you will be out of here before you can say…” he paused for a moment and smiled, “anything, really!”

_ I wasn’t going to say anything about his hair. I just assumed he’d been at  _ Runway _for a long time._ “So how old is he?”

“He’s twenty-seven, Yuuri. He’s blond and very… sensitive on the subject of hair, let’s call it that.”

“ _Twenty-seven_?”

“Very young for an editor-in-chief, I know,” Chris nodded. “That’s talent for you.”

“ _Twenty-seven_!” Yuuri stared down at his feet in horrified shock. “I thought…” _I thought that everyone put up with him because of years of work and that kind of thing. He’s twenty-seven! How old was he when he became the editor-in-chief?_

“If I recall correctly the editor-in-chief of _Fantastic Man_ is even younger. Now how old is he?” Chris mused aloud. “Very confident young man. Some call him arrogant, of course.”

Yuuri opened his mouth to ask why Yuri hated him so much, but Chris changed the subject.

“Now, I do believe that you have a long overdue appointment with Georgi for your hair.”

 

Mila was standing by Yuri’s desk, chatting to him when Yuuri returned to the office.

“I just can’t believe he…” she trailed off and stared at Yuuri.

Plisetsky looked up from the notepad he’d been writing on to see why Mila had stopped talking and his expression was identical to the one on Mila’s face: astonishment.

“Good morning, Yuuri!” Mila said, greeting him properly for what was probably the second time since Yuuri had gotten the job. “Is that for next week’s shoot?”

He remembered what Chris had been muttering to himself and nodded. He couldn’t find his voice and felt really awkward. Who knew what cruel things they’d say about him now?

None, as it turned out.

Mila smiled. “You look nice,” she said. Then she turned and took in Yuri’s glare. “See you at lunch, Yuri,” and walked out, her heels clacking on the floor.

Yuuri felt a rush of joy. He fought it down and claimed his seat without another word.

His hands went up to his hair and then he snatched them away, remembering what Georgi had said. He’d only used hair gel, but still Yuuri felt as if he’d done something more. Yuuri had been adamant about keeping his hair colour.

The phone on his desk rang.

“Victor Nikiforov’s office? Oh, hello, Chris! No, he’s out right now. I’ll let you know when he returns.”

 

Victor was having a trying day. His vacation had been cancelled because of the weather. His editors all looked lost, as if they’d suddenly forgotten how to do their jobs. His second assistant seemed to be more interested in messing around with models than doing his job. He could feel his patience running out.

“No, no, it’s no good,” he said. “It’s clear to me that none of you are ready for the upcoming shoot.” He sighed. “You leave me with no choice but to move it to the next issue.” _And I will need to choose which one to move forward to this one, great._

“Victor, please!” they all protested. “Give us more time!”

“Alright. I’m giving you two hours. If you don’t have something for me by then…” He sighed and shook his head. “That’s all.” He forced himself to smile.

Victor walked back to his office. He needed coffee and lots of it.

There was a stranger in his office. He was dressed in tweed like an old-fashioned gentleman, but it sat just right on him. He moved gracefully across the room and arranged something on Victor’s desk.

Victor stared. Then the person spun around, hearing Victor’s hesitant footsteps, and Victor recognized Yuuri.

Who knew the boy could be so handsome in a good vest and jacket? It shouldn’t have come as a surprise after that evening in the restaurant, but it caught him off guard just like last time.

“Hello, Victor,” Yuuri said and walked out.

Victor turned to admire his assistant’s clothes from behind.

Chris always had the answers to his questions, it seemed. But he needed to take another look. What was a good excuse to bring his assistant back in? Ah yes: he wanted coffee.

“Yuuri!” he called and the assistant rushed back.

Victor stared at him in silence for several seconds. It was perfect. Why hadn’t he invited Chris to that meeting? “I’d like some coffee.”

“Yes, Victor.” The boy rushed out.

“And get me Chris,” Victor called after him.

 

They were having a heated discussion with Chris that was getting dangerously close to an argument when Yuuri returned with the coffee.

He set it down on Victor’s desk and turned to leave.

“Yuuri, wait.”

The assistant froze on the spot. Victor walked up to him.

_ He’s going to say something about my clothing, isn’t he? Oh great, here it comes! What will Chris do? _

“Chris, it’s very simple. Look at this jacket,” and he continued his argument, using Yuuri as a prop to demonstrate what he meant.

Yuuri didn’t move from the spot as Victor and Chris circled him. They lifted his arms and asked him to strike different poses.

“Hang on,” Victor reached out for Yuuri’s glasses. “May I?”

Yuuri nodded.

Victor pulled them off, folded them and tucked them into Yuuri’s top pocket.

“What do you think?” Victor asked Chris.

“I’m not really convinced. Maybe… Yuuri, can you pull the glasses out of your pocket and hold them in your hand?”

After 10 minutes of this strange conversation, which turned to fabric towards the end, Yuuri was permitted to go. Victor lowered his right hand from the last pose and gave his fingers a gentle squeeze before turning to talk to Chris.

Yuuri walked out in a daze. He dropped into his seat and stared down at his hand.

“Still cold?” Yuri asked, referring to the gloves on Yuuri’s hands.

“Yes,” he lied and wondered why. He kept the gloves on, even though his hands were warm. From time to time he would stare down at his right hand.

Chris walked out half an hour later. He stopped at Yuuri’s desk and gave him a wink.

Yuuri merely stared.

“Yuuri, I think Victor wanted to ask you something,” he said and left.

Yuuri rushed into the office. “Yes?”

“Did you order my lunch?”

“I will order it right away,” Yuuri turned to go.

“Wait.”

Yuuri froze in the doorway and turned around. “Was there anything else you wanted?”

Victor gave this some consideration. “No. That’s all.”

 

Yuuri was dressed in light colours the next day. It felt as if Victor had an errand for him every minute of the day and so he was in and out of his office all day long. He’d barely had time to grab something to eat and even that was when he was out fetching something for his boss.

“Cute,” someone said to him and he turned to see a young woman standing next to him. “Sorry,” she said, “I just thought your clothes were cute… ah…”

He had a feeling she was about to introduce herself and so he rushed off before she could.

In the evening he found a piece of paper with a phone number and a name on it in his pocket.

 

He sat in Victor’s office, writing down his instructions for the following morning as the editor sat at his desk and flipped through a magazine.

“That’s all,” he concluded and lowered the magazine onto the table.

Yuuri stood up, suddenly feeling very disappointed.

Victor crossed the office and took the notepad from his hands. He looked over the list and nodded.

Yuuri took it back and turned to go.

“Yuuri –”

The first assistant burst into the office. “Look at this!” He held up a magazine and Yuuri saw it was _Fantastic Man_. “Look at this photoshoot!”

Even to Yuuri’s inexperienced eye the main detail stood out like Victor’s car in the streets of New York.

Tweed.

He stared up at Victor and then at Yuri.

“It’s too late to change it now,” Victor said. “The new issue goes out tomorrow.”

“And this is from this morning!”

“Tweed is back in fashion.” Victor returned to his desk.

Yuuri walked out of his office, followed closely by Yuri. “I hate that stupid man,” he muttered. “One day…”

It was a well-known fact that the first assistant hated the editor of _Fantastic Man_ , but _why exactly_ he hated him was not as well-known. Or, at least, Yuuri didn’t know.

The extent of the second assistant’s knowledge on the subject was limited to two facts. One: the editor was arrogant. Two: He had an odd pen-name, or nickname (whichever it was) that showed up in every issue, but it didn’t shed any light on his identity: King.

Tweed.

As far as Yuuri could understand it, they’d narrowly avoided some disaster by publishing so closely to each other. Any more time and they would’ve… would’ve what? What did it matter? He still couldn’t understand.

“He’s just taunting us,” Yuri went on in the best traditions of the Elias-Clarke paranoia.

This paranoia usually manifested itself in the ever-present fear that the editor of _Runway_ was always standing behind people who discussed him. Yuri added a new level to it by acting as if the editor _Fantastic Man_ was ubiquitous as well.

Yuuri merely sighed and tried to go on as normal.

He thought he’d finally adjusted to Victor’s routine, anticipating most of his wishes, but now Victor seemed to want him in the office every minute of every day, even during meetings when he expected Yuuri to take notes. He would stay really late and call all the editors and art directors in at the end of each day, then was his last meeting with Chris, until finally, _finally_ , he would go home.

Yuuri would follow soon after with the Book.

Every evening Victor would be on the sofa with his back to him and Makkachin splayed out on his lap and every evening Yuuri tried to enter and leave as discretely as possible.

To Yuuri it suddenly seemed as if the first assistant wasn’t doing half as much work as he was.

 

Tweed was in. Yuuri saw it everywhere he went, but mostly on the people in the Elias-Clarke building. One rare time when he managed to go to the dining room for lunch (and not just grab something on the run in the street) he noticed the group of gossipers. They were all in tweed skirts.

They eyed him up and down several times and then one of them walked up to him to try to make conversation.

“Hey! Are you Victor’s new assistant?”

“Yes, I am. Sorry, I’m in a big hurry.”

“Call me some time,” she said and slipped her number into his pocket.

_ Not again! _ he thought, weaving through the crowd towards the soup.

By the end of the day he had several phone numbers in his pocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the comments I got on the previous chapter, I thought I would add this disclaimer: I do not agree with what Chris says in this chapter. For those of you waiting for kicking/mugging/something along those lines I am hoping that chapter 8 and/or 9 will make you feel better.


	8. Yellow Gloves

When Yuuri came to drop off the Book he was wearing mustard yellow leather gloves. For some reason Victor’s mind picked out that detail and ignored everything else. What else had he been wearing? Who knew? But the yellow gloves stuck in Victor’s mind and he couldn’t stop thinking about those long graceful fingers laying down the Book before their owner left.

Victor couldn’t sleep. All he could think about were the yellow gloves. He got up, paced the room, read a book and still sleep wouldn’t come.

He went to retrieve the Book and flipped through it, tutting. It was all the same, all boring and predictable.

He needed something new. Something inspired. Something revolutionary.

_Yellow gloves_ , his brain taunted him. _Yellow gloves_ , over and over again until he thought he would go insane.

He got up and walked around.

Why yellow?

He stopped and stared at the Book. Suddenly he had it: the theme for the next issue. It was just three days away but what did that matter? Why publish something he wasn’t satisfied with when he had an idea for something better?

He sat down, made some notes and then looked at the clock.

_4 am_

He pulled out his phone and called Yuri.

“Tell Chris to meet me at the office in 10 minutes,” he said and hung up.

 

Yuuri went through half-empty streets in a cab he was going to expense later, his phone pressed to his ear.

“What? We’re redoing the shoot for the next issue? But the whole thing is due in three days!” It was bad enough that they had to get the January issue done earlier because of the holidays, but now all that rushed work was being thrown out of the window to be replaced by even more rushed work. It just made no sense. Wouldn’t it have made sense to leave it for the February issue? What was so urgent about it?

He listened to Yuri explain in a drowsy voice and with lots of expletives that he was equally baffled at this.

What was Victor thinking? Surely what they had was just fine!

When Yuuri arrived at the office suite Victor and Chris were already there, discussing something in hushed tones. Yuuri hung up his coat and brought the coffee into Victor’s office. There was one for Chris as well as both Yuris.

Victor took his without comment.

Chris smiled and nodded at Yuuri. “Thank you. That’s exactly what I need.”

Five minutes later the hushed conversation turned into a loud argument.

“You can’t do this! What will Yakov say?” Chris demanded.

“Listen, Chris, this is much better than what we have right now. I refuse to publish something I’m not satisfied with.”

Yuuri sat at his desk, pretending he couldn’t hear anything, holding his head in his hands and wishing he _really_ couldn’t hear anything.

The first assistant hurried into the office, a murderous expression on his face. He nodded when he and Yuuri made eye contact.

Every hour more people arrived and were absorbed into the panicking group venturing in and out of Victor’s office. Yakov barged in at 8 o’clock and demanded an explanation. Everyone was thrown out, but they hung around behind the closed door, trying to look as if they weren’t eavesdropping and failing. Judging by the yelling that followed, the explanation Victor gave wasn’t good enough.

But Victor got his own way in the end and the editors and art directors were all dragged into his office to pick out the clothing for the photoshoot. Yuuri watched several of them run out in tears.

When the time came for Yuuri to take his 15 minute lunch break, he slept with his head on the desk. Food wasn’t a priority as much as sleep was. Coffee wasn’t helping anymore either.

“Here.” Yuuri raised his head and Yuri handed him one of the take out boxes from the dining room.

“Thank you! You shouldn’t have.”

“You brought me coffee,” Yuri explained and then shrugged, “I’m charging the company for this, anyway.” There was a hint of a grin as he sat down. “I found the most expensive option for both of us.”

The most expensive option, sadly, didn’t live up to the title. Yuuri realized as he worked his way through it that he would have gladly traded it for something simpler, cheaper and with more calories.

In all the chaos Victor appeared to have forgotten about his urgent need for an assistant at his side at all times. At least, until after lunchtime.

“Yuuri!” the editor called. The second assistant ran into his office. “Where is my lunch?”

Yuuri realized that in all the madness he’d completely forgotten about it. “I’ll order it right away.”

“Get Yuri to sort it out. I need you to call in more people.”

Editors arrived with models. It seemed that many of them had skipped lunch to prepare. It was slowly becoming a kind of storm, turning everything over in its wake and leaving people terrified (if not mildly traumatized). The storm had started at the top floor in the early hours of the morning, drawing both assistants and Chris in, then travelled further down floor by floor, until the only people not panicking were the bankers on the bottom two floors of the building (although, it is possible they were panicking for their own banking reasons).

Yuuri later heard the stories that went around about that day. They talked about a model who supposedly fainted out the window and another model that started to hallucinate from the panic, claiming she could see Victor’s face on all the walls. People told horror stories about Victor going through floor after floor with a pitchfork in his hands to get rid of anyone who wasn’t worthy, but that was also a big lie. Yuuri knew for a fact that the editor hadn’t left his office that day.

It lasted until midnight with Victor’s strict order that everyone return at 6 am.

Dinners were cancelled, dates abandoned. Panic continued into the next day. It was the kind of panic that took over a house when its inhabitants found out that some picky in-laws that no one really liked were about to drop in for a few days and suddenly the living room was a mess, the kitchen needed refurbishing and the guest bedroom needed its walls painted.

The second day was full of contradictory instructions from the editor. Several people lost their jobs. A few others ran out of his office in tears. Someone nearly got into a fight with him. That was the worst of them all. Yuuri held one of the editors back as the man shouted abuse and waved his fists around while Yuuri wished he could let the man loose.

“Please…” Yuuri tried to soothe him.

“Mad! You’re completely out of your mind, Victor! We don’t have anything ready! There’s barely any material to shoot, never mind that we don’t have the time for the shoot. Why the mad rush? Our issue was almost ready!”

Victor turned away. “Then no one sleeps until everything is done.”

“You’re dreaming in Technicolor! They’ll all quit!”

“Really?” Victor spun around and strode across the room to tower over him. “Why don’t we see about that?”

They all stayed up. Yuuri and Yuri sat in the office and hoped for a miracle. Every time someone walked past them into Victor’s office they would ask in hushed tones what the progress was and every time the answer was the same: only Victor knew. But the two assistants tried to keep track based on who walked in and out just to do something to keep them awake. The number of coffees consumed overnight was probably enough to sustain a small town through several mornings.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Mila muttered to the two assistants. They sat around Yuri’s desk, waiting until they would be needed. They were all too tired to worry about being overheard. “We’re not all like him,” she whispered, “I mean, I know he’s a machine and never sleeps, but why can’t he think about us?”

“He can’t,” Yuri muttered.

“More than half the girls in the Elias-Clarke building dream about getting into that guy’s pants but the man cares only for himself,” Mila said. “Makes you wonder what they see in him.” She heaved a sigh. “We’ll collapse if he goes on like this.”

“It’s just until tomorrow,” Yuuri said. “We have to pull through somehow.”

“And everything will be magically alright?” Yuri snorted.

Yuuri closed his eyes and rested his head on his hands. The world just didn’t want to stop spinning.

“Yuuri!” Victor called.

And off he went again.

 

The third day came and brought light at the end of the tunnel, but no rest. Victor oversaw the delivery of the final version himself and sent everyone home except for his two assistants. Yuri was left to man the desk. Yuuri was to accompany Victor on a trip to various designers to talk about the early run-through of the dresses for Paris Fashion Week. What this really meant was that Victor sat with them in their living rooms, drinking and chatting about mutual friends while Yuuri tried to be as invisible as possible.

In one of the houses Yuuri was sent off to a different room where he found a stack of old _Fantastic Man_ issues on a table. Having nothing better to do, Yuuri flipped through them at random, hoping to find some information about its editor when one issue caught his eye.

Victor Nikiforov smiled from the cover page. The caption read: _Victor Nikiforov - Most Stylish Man._

Yuuri flipped to the page with the interview with him and read it.

It was the standard sort of article that didn’t reveal anything about Victor Yuuri hadn’t learned by that point.

_Question: And, lastly, if I may ask a personal question?_

_Victor: [laughs] Why not?_

_Question: Are you seeing anyone at the moment?_

“Yuuri?”

Yuuri raised his eyes from the article and met Victor’s. He put the magazine away hurriedly. “I… um… yes?”

“Time to go.”

What was it like to be Victor Nikiforov, editor of _Runway_ and most stylish man (according to pretty much everyone)? Yuuri couldn’t even begin to imagine. It was the kind of job that put a lot of pressure on the person, certainly, but Victor never acted like it did. Even when he was demanding and dissatisfied with what people gave him he acted as if it was all just part of their jobs. He never broke down, even if he caused others to break down. That took a lot of strength of character.

Yuuri thought about the evening with the other editors and wondered what they were like at work.

_What is the editor of_ FantasticMan _like to his employees?_

 

That evening when Yuuri came home Phichit dragged him out for drinks.

“I promised Guang Hong and Leo,” he said, “so there’s no excuse.”

Yuuri was too tired to protest. _If I fall asleep at the table, they’ll just drag me home._

“Who on Earth are you and what have you done with my friend Yuuri?” Guang Hong demanded and Leo nodded with a laugh.

“What?” Then he stared down at his clothes and realized that he hadn’t changed since he’d come home from work.

“I was wondering the same thing,” Phichit said. “So I figured we should interrogate this impostor and find out where the real Yuuri is hiding.”

“Oh come on, you guys! It’s me!”

“Yeah, right,” Guang Hong said, “I happen to know you can’t afford those shoes on your salary.”

“I like them, though,” Leo said. “Had my eye on them for two months now.”

“Really? I… Someone at work just… sort of lent them to me.”

“Wow! Really?”

Two minutes later it turned out that Yuuri worked at the best place in the world and didn’t even know it. It certainly didn’t feel like it. And then even Yuuri, much to his own surprise, was talking about it like it was the best.

“And he said we’re creating art! So there!”

Phichit watched him with a smile. “You’ve certainly changed your tune. Have they been feeding you something?”

“Er… what?”

“Look at him, Phichit,” Guang Hong said, “they haven’t been feeding him _anything_ , obviously!”

“Yeah, I don’t like it,” Leo added. “You don’t look very healthy, Yuuri.”

“Oh come on, you guys. It’s just a little… I haven’t had much sleep, that’s all.” Yuuri rubbed his eyes.

“None, I should think,” Phichit said. “I haven’t seen you in days.” Then he stood up and got his coat. “I’m sorry, you guys, I’ve been a complete idiot. Yuuri needs to go home right now.”

“Wh-what? No, I don’t!”

“Yes, you do. And then you’re going to sleep like a normal person.”

Yuuri’s phone rang. Everyone at the table watched Yuuri pull it out of his pocket.

“Victor Nikiforov’s office- I mean: Yuuri speaking?” He avoided looking at anyone.

“Yuuri! I need –”

Phichit grabbed the phone from Yuuri’s hand and hung up.

“Phichit, how could you?” Yuuri scrambled for it.

“Yuuri, don’t be stupid!” Phichit exclaimed. “You are in no state to go to work. Go home and sleep. I’m sure whatever it is can wait until morning.”

“There won’t _be_ a morning! He’ll fire me for this!”

“Good. Maybe then you can find a job that isn’t trying to kill you.”

Yuuri snatched the phone and dialed Victor hurriedly. “Victor, I-I’m so sorry. My phone disconnected.” He ran out of the restaurant, forgetting everything else, even his coat and wallet.

Phichit picked up Yuuri’s stuff and rushed after him. He only managed to catch Yuuri as he was getting into a cab. Yuuri saw his things in Phichit’s hands, grabbed them and closed the door. The cab drove off, leaving Phichit standing on the sidewalk.

 

“…Christmas party,” Yuri said and Yuuri shook himself into a slightly more awake state.

“What?”

It was the morning of the next day and he’d barely caught a few hours of sleep. At this point he probably needed a week of sleep just to stop feeling sleepy and feel even slightly human.

“I said: Victor wants us both to be there at the Christmas party,” Yuri repeated.

“Okay. Good. I guess?” _There’s a Christmas party?_

Yuuri was fairly certain he hadn’t said those words aloud. Mostly certain, anyway. But something must have given his confusion away, because Yuri’s next sentence was: “Every year Victor hosts a Christmas party for everyone who is anyone in the fashion world… and that bastard gets invited too, even though he never comes,” he added not quite under his breath, “so it’s our job to memorize everyone’s names.”

“Er… why?”

“Because he can’t remember all of them, obviously, but he hates looking like he doesn’t know someone, so we’re there to make sure he remembers who he’s talking to.”

Yuuri nodded. It didn’t make any sense, but then nothing did that morning, so it probably wasn’t too ridiculous. _Focus! What is the important thing here? Remembering names. Right._

“We have two weeks to memorize them.”

“Okay.” _I used to memorize all kinds of stuff for class. This can’t be that hard._

“I get half the list and you get the other half.”

Yuuri nodded to show he was still paying attention.

Yuri dropped a big folder on Yuuri’s desk, making Yuuri jump. “This is your half.”

_That’s bigger than the Book! I didn’t think that was possible!_ “How many people come to this party?”

“Oh, about a hundred.”

“Okay.”

“If you don’t count their wives, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends and anyone else they want to bring.”

“Ah.” Yuuri felt panic rise inside him. “And will I…?”

“Have to learn their names too? Yes you will.” Yuri turned away and walked back to his desk. “That’s all homework for you, though. Now that the January issue is ready to go we’re supposed to take care of Victor’s Christmas list.”

“Christmas list?”

“Yes. Every year Victor sends out presents to everyone on his Christmas list. It’s our job to wrap the presents up and then send them to the right person. And this is the list.” Yuri held up the list on his table. It wasn’t a list, it was a stack of papers pretending to be a list.

_Oh God, I didn’t know Victor was Santa Claus! Or did Victor just steal his list? Do I have to check who was naughty or nice too?_

Ten minutes later Yuuri found out that Victor’s list included everyone Victor had ever met (down to the people who worked at the various stores he frequented), but _obviously_ not anyone who worked under him. The least important people on that list got a bottle of wine, valued at somewhere around a thousand dollars and Yuuri did his best to not think about the people higher up on that list. His job was to take the bottles of wine from the crates that had arrived that morning, place each in a box just big enough for it, wrap it in nice paper, tie a ribbon around it to Yuri’s exact specifications and then place it in the corner with all of the other bottles until they called a special courier service in to take them all individually to their destinations.

 

The following day Victor decided he needed Yuuri’s constant presence in his office again, slowing the present-wrapping process down considerably.

By seven that evening they’d barely made it a quarter of the way through the list.

Plisetsky’s phone rang. He took one look at who the caller was and rushed to the other side of the room to answer it.

Yuuri didn’t hear any of the conversation apart from a single “you don’t have to” before Yuri rang off and returned. He couldn’t resist looking at Yuri curiously. He’d never heard him speak so quietly and calmly on the phone before. Even when in a conversation with an important figure in the world of fashion Yuri always had an edge to his voice.

“You don’t mind if my friend drops by, do you?”

“Why would I? There’s no one else here.”

“He just wants to bring me dinner.” Yuri smiled. Yuuri was shocked to see that it was a truly happy smile. “Beka always looks out for me. We’ve been best friends since school.”

“Sounds nice,” Yuuri said. “I have a friend like that too.”

When his friend arrived, Yuri introduced him to Yuuri.

“This is Otabek. Beka, this is Yuuri.”

“Nice to meet you.” They shook hands and Yuuri caught the way Yuri was staring at Otabek.

_Not just a best friend, is he?_

“I brought you food,” Otabek said, holding up a bag.

Yuri took it and studied its contents. “My favourite! Thanks!” He beamed.

Otabek nodded and there was a hint of a smile on his face.

Yuri divided up the contents among them and they sat at their desks (Otabek bringing a chair to put next to Yuri’s desk for himself) and ate. For a while there was silence in the office suite broken only by the sounds of chewing.

“Well, at least I don’t have to wait for the Book,” Yuuri said quietly for nothing else to say.

Yuri groaned. “This would have been so much easier, if he didn’t call you into his office all the time. Honestly, it’s like he _wants_ to slow us down!”

Yuuri didn’t know what to say to that.

“I mean, what were you doing in there, anyway?”

“Taking notes,” Yuuri answered.

“See? This is getting ridiculous! Why can’t he go on holiday or something? He usually does this time of year!”

Yuuri lowered his eyes guiltily.

“And I’m not blaming you,” Yuri said, much to his surprise. “He could just get himself another ticket and go. God knows we won’t need him around here until the Christmas party! And even then he doesn’t usually hang around for very long. And all that stuff with redoing the issue! He’s getting more ridiculous by the minute!”

Yuuri couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Yuri had grumbled a bit before, but he’d never ranted like this.

“Maybe you should tell him,” Otabek spoke up suddenly.

“What?” Yuri stopped mid-rant.

“Tell him that you need more of Yuuri’s time so that he stops calling him into his office. And tell him that he’s being ridiculous.”

Yuri seemed to have run out of all words but one. “What?”

Otabek shrugged. “How can someone know they’re being unreasonable until someone else tells them?”

“Because it’s obvious?” Yuri suggested. Otabek opened his mouth, but Yuri interrupted. “No, no, I’m not arguing. You’re right. We have to tell him.”

“How?” Yuuri asked.

“ _You_ tell him.”

“What?”

“Just you know, talk to him and tell him he’s being unreasonable to everyone. It’s gotten out of hand.”

“Why me?” _How can I talk to him? I spend half my time terrified of him and the other half wishing I could punch him in the face!_

“Because you’re in his office all the time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm curious to hear your theory on what you think will happen next. If you want to make up a very wild theory, that works too.


	9. Nothing Happened

_ Wednesday _

Victor sat in a bar, the hint of a smile on his face as he nursed his drink. His big coat was draped over the stool next to him. What was he thinking about? What brought a smile to Victor Nikiforov’s face?

 

_ Thursday _

Victor was only there for fifteen minutes before getting up and leaving. Yuuri hid behind a menu as his boss walked past him.

 

_ Friday _

A drunk sat down next to Victor and kept trying to make jokes at him.

Victor watched him without saying a word.

The barman signaled to someone and they lead the drunk away.

Yuuri studied the way Victor’s hand moved towards the glass with his drink. There was always that little bit of hesitation, as if he was asking himself if he really wanted another one.

After three glasses Victor left.

 

_ Saturday _

Victor spent a long time at the bar that day.

_ Is he waiting for someone? Well, why wouldn’t he? A man who can be as charming as him when he likes has every right to expect to be loved. And just because Chris says he’s not seeing anyone doesn’t mean that it’s true. _

Yuuri imagined someone coming in, sitting down and taking Victor’s hand. They smile and laugh at something. And then they’d go to Victor’s apartment. Yuuri could imagine every single little detail from the elevator ride, to the click of the key in the lock, to the… But he’d never seen Victor’s bedroom.

He felt all the blood rush to his face. What sort of a thought was that? He grabbed his stuff and ran out as discretely as he could.

 

_ Sunday _

He wasn’t supposed to have come at all. It was the weekend and, like the day before, he was just wasting it away, watching his boss drink shots of vodka.

He wondered if Victor was drunk. Then he wondered what he would do if Victor got drunk and started to act like it. Another hour of watching didn’t answer the question because Victor rose unsteadily to his feet and left.

Yuuri should’ve just spent the weekend sleeping. It was obvious that no matter what he ordered from the menu his courage wasn’t going to arrive with it.

 

_ Monday _

_ I have to do something, or try to anyway. Yuri is counting on me. But how do I explain it? _

Yuuri had already decided that the short time in the evening that Victor spent at the bar was the best available opening in his schedule. He’d spent his few precious hours at home pacing his room, trying to come up with a proper speech that explained it all. At night he was having trouble sleeping.

That evening fatigue and frustration with himself had united into one driving force.

_ No backing down now. I have to do it. _

 

“Good evening, Victor.”

The editor of _Runway_ stopped contemplating his glass and smiled when he saw his second assistant standing next to him. “Ah, Yuuri! Good evening! Come and sit with me.”

This was so far removed from the reaction Yuuri had expected that he completely forgot the reason he’d come and sat down obediently.

“What would you like?” Victor asked. “I’ll call the barman over.”

“I’ll have whatever you’re having.” _What the hell? I can’t speak properly anymore! What’s going on?_

“Barman, another vodka, please.”

_ Goddammit! That’s it. It’s over. I might as well resign right now. _

Victor turned around to look at Yuuri. “I never order anything else, so I don’t actually know what else is on their menu.”

Yuuri nodded, wishing he could think of something to say.

“This takes me back to my first year as editor. I used to spend every evening here. I never suffered from insomnia, though.” He turned away and Yuuri had a perfect view of his profile. Victor went on about his first year, but Yuuri didn’t hear a single word.

_ Look at me. _ Where had that thought come from?

Victor turned back to look at him. “So what brings you here?”

_ Now, I have to say it now. _

Instead, he put his hand over Victor’s.

Victor stared down at it in surprise.

A different part of Yuuri’s brain took over and he leaned forward.

 

Victor was exhausted. He knew that no matter what he did he wouldn’t be able to get any sleep, so he did what he always did in this mood: he went for a drink. He felt like his brain had been replaced by a mouse running in a treadmill.

_ What is wrong with me? My brain can’t stop. I feel like my head might explode. Should I go see a doctor? _

He didn’t have time to be sick. The last time it happened they’d barely made the deadline.

And then Yuuri appeared out of nowhere and he wondered if he was hallucinating as well. So, _naturally_ , he invited the boy to sit with him. Parts of him were registering what he’d noticed that morning: how Yuuri’s clothes really suited his figure. He could see Chris’s hand behind it, but that only pleased him more.

“I’ll have whatever you’re having.” He felt flattered by that, but why?

His mouth went off on its own without any input from his brain and Yuuri listened to it all. He hoped like mad that Yuuri wasn’t going to remember any of it. There were details of his life he’d never told anyone, but was now recounting as if they were close friends.

He couldn’t look at Yuuri as he talked and then he forced himself to do so. “So, what brings you here?” To his own ears he sounded like an old man trying to speak teenage slang. Awkward.

Yuuri put his hand over Victor’s and Victor felt his heartbeat increase. He stared down at his hand wondering what Yuuri meant by this gesture.

Yuuri leaned forward and Victor expected a kiss, but instead Yuuri put his lips against Victor’s jaw. Victor sat still, unable to breathe, feeling Yuuri’s lips against his skin. Yuuri’s hands were around him. Victor could feel his fingers on his shoulder blades. Despite his shirt and jacket, the touch almost burned him. Yuuri shifted his chair closer and moved on to Victor’s neck.

There were people around them, but no one seemed to notice or care that the leading authority on fashion who never made compromises, never backed down in an argument and always got his own way was surrendering to a young man no one knew.

Yuuri loosened Victor’s tie and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt.

Victor wondered if he should say anything or make any kind of noise, but he remained absolutely still, as if sitting for a portrait.

Yuuri pulled away. “You didn’t seem to enjoy that at all.”

Victor blushed bright red. “I did…” he insisted.

Yuuri put his hands on Victor’s thighs and suddenly his face was dangerously close. “Is there a better place that we can go?”

“We…” Victor’s throat was dry. He swallowed and tried again. “I… have an apartment.” It was impossible to remember where, “…nearby… and a car…” _He should know, he’s been there often enough_ , his brain reminded him.

“Perfect,” Yuuri pulled away and stood up.

Was he drunk? Was Yuuri drunk? What did being drunk feel like? It couldn’t feel like this – this felt infinitely better.

Victor did his best to control himself, to appear calm and collected. There was complete chaos in his mind. His heart was beating fast and he had a hard time keeping his hands off Yuuri.

_ We’re nearly there, _ he told himself and watched Yuuri’s face.

There was something odd about Yuuri. He could go from wide-eyed innocence to the god of eros himself at the drop of a hat. It fascinated Victor.

Victor barely remembered how they made it back to his apartment. Yuuri sat next to him in the car, holding Victor’s right hand between both of his. Maybe he was dreaming. In that case he didn’t want to ever wake up. He was perfectly happy to be stuck in this dream for ever.

He must’ve told his driver where to take them, or maybe Yuuri had done that. He couldn’t see anything but Yuuri’s eyes.

Then it was up the elevator and through the door and suddenly he was lying on his back in his bed with Yuuri on top of him. His assistant undressed him with a kind of frustration, as if every button in his shirt was a personal insult.

After that it was either torture or pure pleasure, he wasn’t sure. Yuuri’s lips burned against his skin. He closed his eyes and wondered what he was supposed to say.

What did people say in his situation?

The answer came unbidden and he gasped out the other man’s name. “Yuuri!”

“What?” he asked irritably.

Victor stared into his face, conscious of how red his own was and wondering if Yuuri’s was redder. “N-nothing.”

“Can you turn over?” Yuuri whispered. “Or will you require some personal assistance from me?”

He wanted to joke about this, but his mind was blank. He felt incredibly stupid and slow. Where was his quick thinking? His clever repartee? His ability to hit the nail on the head with one well-chosen turn of words?

“T-turn over?”

It was hard to read Yuuri’s expression in the dim light of the room. It could’ve been anything: embarrassment, amusement, frustration.

Yuuri leaned over his ear and whispered something, but his hands were sliding up Victor’s chest at the same time and that was all he could concentrate on at that moment.

What did he say? It was so hard to understand anything. He had only one clear thought: Yuuri wasn’t wearing anything.

The next thought that arrived was the disappointment at the fact that he’d missed the transition between Yuuri’s dressed and naked states.

Yuuri’s lips were behind his ear now. The feeling of pleasure was starting to overwhelm Victor, but at least he knew what it was.

“Yuuri,” he whispered.

“What?”

“Yuuri,” he moaned and felt embarrassed by this.

“What?” Yuuri asked again, but there was a teasing note in his voice this time.

_ How do you know what to do? How do you know what I want? How can you make me feel so good? _

“You… you really _do_ always anticipate my wishes.”

Yuuri raised his head and stared into his face.

“I guess that makes you the perfect assistant,” Victor said.

The perfect assistant swung his hand around and slapped Victor on the face.

“Yuuri! What? What was that for?”

Yuuri climbed off the bed. “Don’t say anything. Don’t do anything.” He turned away. “I’m going to take a shower and then I’m going to leave.”

Victor sat up. He watched Yuuri do as he promised.

Once he was done Yuuri walked out. He turned around in the doorway of the bedroom and avoided eye contact as he said, “Nothing happened, do you understand? Nothing happened between us.” He slammed the door behind him and after a few minutes Victor heard the outside door slam as well.

 

Yuri Plisetsky looked up in surprise as Yuuri Katsuki barged into the office. That he was furious was obvious a mile away. Plisetsky opened his mouth and considered his words before speaking.

“I guess it didn’t go well.”

Yuuri froze with his coat half off his shoulder. His head was turned away so that Yuri couldn’t see his expression. “No,” he said after a while and the word seemed to contain a whole novel of other words in it.

“I knew it wouldn’t work,” Plisetsky shrugged.

Yuuri spun around. “So why did you tell me to do it?”

Plisetsky didn’t hear the words, but the hurt tone and saw the pained look in Yuuri’s eyes as well as the blush on his cheeks. “He did something, didn’t he?” He got up, threw a look at Victor’s empty office and crossed the office to stand close to Yuuri. “What did he do?” he asked quietly.

The phones rang before Yuuri could answer. Plisetsky returned to his desk.

“Victor Nikiforov’s office.” He listened to someone on the other side of the line. “He’s not in right now, but I will let him know you called.” He hung the phone up with a sigh. “ _Again_.”

“I’ll go get his coffee,” Yuuri said, pulling his coat back on and leaving.

When Yuuri returned to the office Victor was already there. His door wasn’t closed completely and he caught fragments of the conversation as he set the coffee down on Yuri’s desk absent-mindedly.

“…a real firecracker! I mean, who would’ve known?”

“Who indeed?” a second voice responded and Yuuri recognized Chris’ voice. Then he said something in a lower tone of voice.

“They’re talking about you,” Yuri said before Yuuri could even think to ask the question. “Now go get me a bucket.”

“What do you need a bucket for?”

“Because I need to throw up. I just had to endure a detailed description of your night with _our boss_.”

Yuuri turned bright red.

“I told you to talk to him, not sleep with him! How can you get the two confused?” Plisetsky’s disgusted look was then replaced by a pitying one. “I think you went easy on him. I wouldn’t have been so nice. I just can’t believe he’s so dense he asked Chris for an explanation!” He leaned forward and lowered his voice, “And _advice_.”

 

It may be some kind of self-defence on the part of the human brain, or, perhaps, it’s just human stupidity. Whatever it is, there are times when something truly _big_ happens and the brain works its way down a kind of checklist instead of thinking every thought at the same time. Possibly because the alternative would make it explode.

Yuuri’s mental checklist was roughly as follows:

_ Anger _ . He’d spent all night unable to sleep, just feeling angry. Angry with himself. What had gotten into him? What had _possessed_ him (for lack of a better word) to do something so stupid? What was wrong with him? What was going on? He tried to convince himself that it was perfectly normal to want to kiss someone who was handsome. But of all the people, why Victor? Why did it have to be him? He was tired, that’s what it was. He hadn’t slept properly in weeks and he was barely eating. He needed some time to relax.

_ Hate. _ He cursed Victor’s name the whole way home and then swore at him as he tried to sleep. _You stuck up, overconfident, insufferable_ … the list of curses was as long as Victor’s wretched Christmas list.

_ Shock. _ After Chris left Victor’s office (and everyone pretended that the conversation in Victor’s office didn’t happen), after everyone settled down to quietly go through their morning routine it hit.

He’d very nearly had sex with Victor Nikiforov! His own boss!

_ Shock 2.0. _ It was worse than that. He’d had the guts to slap him!

Yuuri really wanted to crawl under his desk, or go home and roll up under his blanket, or just be as far away from his desk as was humanly possible. Maybe he should go to Australia. That sounded like a brilliant idea. Especially after all of his brilliant ideas the previous evening.

_ Oh my god, I don’t believe it! He’s going to kill me! Forget firing, he’s going to kill me. He’s going to get some kind of weapon and kill me. _

And lastly, a small thought arrived, slithering in like a snake, full of all kinds of temptation.

_ He hasn’t fired me. He hasn’t tried to hurt me in any way. He called Chris for advice. And now he’s in there as quiet as a mouse, not even asking for his morning coffee. _

The cup was on the desk in front of Yuuri, its contents already at room temperature.

At this point Yuuri stared across the room at Yuri with a horrified look on his face.

Yuri put his hand to his face. He scribbled something on a piece of paper and held it up.

_ Moron,  _ it said.

Yuuri mouthed, _Now what?_

Yuri shrugged.

Two hours went by. Then three.

They were still working their way through the Christmas list.

Each time there was a noise in the office, Yuuri jumped in his seat and threw an uneasy look at the door.

_ What do I do, if he calls me? _

“Yuuri!” the call came as soon as he had the thought.

Yuri rose to his feet and motioned Yuuri to stay seated. He walked into the office, leaving the door slightly open.

“Where is Yuuri?” Victor asked.

“Out,” Yuri answered. He didn’t even bother with an excuse

“Let me know when he returns. I have an errand for him.”

Yuri walked out and closed the door behind him. He walked up to Yuuri’s desk and took in his trembling.

“What do you want to do now?” Yuri whispered.

“Shouldn’t I go?”

“It’s up to you.”

Yuuri rose to his feet and walked into Victor’s office. _I will have to do this sooner or later. I can’t avoid him forever._

He entered without knocking, which was probably a mistake on his part, but he was so exhausted that he wasn’t thinking clearly anymore.

Victor stood by the window, staring outside, his desk abandoned.

Yuuri opened his mouth to say something and felt his head spin. _If I back away quietly he might not hear me and I can just leave._ He made one step, then another and then reached behind him for the door. His hand hit it, making a noise that awoke Victor from his reverie.

He turned around. “Yuuri, I have an errand for you.”

“Y-yes?”

He opened his mouth and stared at Yuuri. Yuuri willed himself to stand still. “Is something wrong?”

_ I haven’t slept or eaten properly in days. You are driving everyone to their breaking point for no valid reason. Yesterday I followed you into your house where we nearly had sex and then you insulted me. Yet here I am again, because you are my boss. _ “Nothing is wrong.”

Victor nodded and turned away again. “I want my coffee.”

Yuuri turned around and left. _Monster._

The door closed behind him and he swayed on his feet. _I don’t think I can get back to my desk, forget getting the coffee._

He felt someone’s arms around him and raised his eyes. An overwhelming sense of disappointment filled him as he realized Yuri was the one supporting his weight.

“I don’t usually do this,” Yuri said, “but I’ll get the coffee this time. How much have you slept?”

“I couldn’t…”

“Of course. When did you last eat?”

“…I… uh…”

“You need to eat right now. You’re no help if you can’t do your work.” Yuri half dragged him to his desk and then went off for food.

He returned with surprising speed and Yuuri tried to smile as he took the package from Yuri’s hands.

“There was no line for the soup,” Yuri said, “so you’ll have to eat that.”

The clam chowder was suddenly the most delicious thing in the world. Yuuri swallowed spoonful after spoonful of it, feeling energy pour back into his body.

“I should’ve bought two,” Yuri said, taking in the way Yuuri ate the soup, and went off to get Victor’s coffee.

“I’ll ask Beka to get us dinner,” he told Yuuri when he returned. “It’s much better than the stuff they have downstairs.”

Yuuri didn’t argue with that.

 

Victor’s world had turned inside out in the space of one night and when he rushed into his office and saw that Yuuri wasn’t there the first thing he did was call Chris in for some advice.

It was just a shame that he didn’t notice Yuri’s presence or that his door wasn’t fully closed.

Chris did his best to calm him down, but didn’t explain why Yuuri had acted the way he did. Maybe he couldn’t understand it either.

_ Nothing happened between us. _ The words hurt and he remembered how his previous affair ended.

 

_ “I’m moving away.” _

_ “Why?” _

_ “Because maybe that way I can find someone else. Someone who actually cares about me.” _

 

Every time they interviewed him they always asked the same question. _Are you seeing anyone, Mr. Nikiforov?_ And he’d always make a joke and avoid the question. And then they told him that anyone would have felt honoured to be his lover.

_ Just shows how much you know _ .

He stood by the window and watched pedestrians out on the street. From up here he could just make out their general shapes, but nothing in great detail. People, average everyday people who couldn’t tell sapphire from cobalt blue, walked down the street, talked to each other, laughed, flirted. Someone stopped for a kiss.

A noise made him turn and there he stood. Yuuri Katsuki.

_ These last few days you’ve inspired me in a way no one else ever has and I don’t even know how to talk to you. _

“Yuuri, I have an errand for you,” he said and tried to think of something. He’d told the other Yuri he wanted to see Yuuri, after all

“Y-yes?”

He opened his mouth and paused, trying to understand the expression on Yuuri’s face. “Is something wrong?”

Yuuri considered this question before answering. Victor held his breath, waiting for an allusion to what had happened the previous night. “Nothing is wrong.”

Victor nodded and turned away again. “I want my coffee.” _And I want yesterday to not have happened._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for all the comments on the last chapter! They all brought a smile to my face (I'm not kidding, I spent a couple of hours walking around and grinning happily). If you wrote something and didn't get a response, ao3 might have eaten your comment (apparently it did that to a couple of people), for which I apologize.


	10. What I Really Think

That afternoon Victor sent Yuuri after all of the models who worked for the Elias-Clarke company. The editor wanted to pick out who was required for the preliminary run-through he’d scheduled for the following day. Yuuri, who felt revitalized after his lunch, was glad to have an excuse to leave the office suite.

_ Just carry on as normal, _ he told himself. _After all, Victor seems to be doing the same thing. Just don’t think about it. It will be fine._

He found most of the models really quickly, except for one – Sara Crispino. Yuuri made sure that all of them went to the right room (they’d picked out a special conference room that was big enough to hold the battalion of models) before heading off to find her.

After going through several floors Yuuri stumbled upon a scene he didn’t expect. Sara was in the Wardrobe and she wasn’t alone. Mila stood in front of her in a long shiny dress.

“What do you think?” She turned around to demonstrate the back.

“I like it!”

“You should be the one trying it on: you’re the model, not me.”

“But it suits you perfectly!”

Mila laughed and twirled around on the spot. Yuuri stepped behind a rack of clothes before either of them could notice him. He turned away, feeling as if he’d walked in on something private.

“I love you, Mila.” There was so much tenderness in Sara’s voice that there couldn’t be any doubt that the feelings were genuine.

“Not as much as I love you,” Mila responded with equal feeling.

Hot tears poured down Yuuri’s face. It was suddenly hard to breathe. _What’s wrong with me? I should be glad that at least someone is happy in this hell, but I can’t._

He heard someone walking towards him down the hall and wiped his face with his hand. He suppressed a sigh and coughed loudly, hoping it would be enough of a warning for the ladies. Then he stepped out from behind the rack and put on a smile.

Mila’s arms were wrapped around Sara. “Hello, Yuuri! What does the boss want this time?”

“He asked all of the models to come see him. We need to pick who will be there for the preliminary run-through tomorrow.” Yuuri was starting to wish he’d turned around and left. He could’ve told Victor he couldn’t find her.

The women exchanged smiles.

“I guess I better go,” Sara said, and gave Mila a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah.” Mila released Sara and watched the model leave with Yuuri.

_ I’m sorry, _ Yuuri thought. _I feel like I’m cursed to pass misery around like some kind of a virus._

He paused at the elevator and looked at Sara. “Listen, you can go back. I’ll just tell Victor I couldn’t find you. I’ll make something up.”

“Why would you do that?” Sara laughed. “This is my job.”

“But –”

Sara pushed the button for the elevator. “Don’t worry about it.”

 

When they joined Victor he was in a room full of models, walking back and forth among them like a general inspecting his troops. Yuuri wondered how he was going to pick who would go and who wouldn’t. The models were mostly the same size, so what other criteria could there possibly be?

Victor held out his hand and Yuri put a notebook into it. “I have here all of your schedules, complete with your vacations. Your personal schedule is now available upon request from either of my assistants.” A smile appeared on his face, but it didn’t make the atmosphere any less tense. “I expect only the people who are going to Paris to appear before me tomorrow.”

The room was completely quiet. Not a single model moved.

“This is me telling you officially that the schedule is now set in stone and, unless someone is dead or dying, no amount of begging or bribery will change it.” He looked around the room and several models stood even straighter. “So I don’t want my time wasted like last year, is that understood?”

As one they nodded.

“And that includes the time of my two assistants.”

Yuuri looked at Yuri and wondered if Sara’s name was on the list of models going to Paris and – if so – if Mila had had a hand in it.

“I expect professional behaviour from each and every one of you.”

_ And the assistants, _ guilt whispered into Yuuri’s ear. He bit his lip, hoping his face wasn’t turning red.

“And I don’t wish to remind you what happens to those of you who forget the meaning of the words ‘professional behaviour’ while in Paris.” He handed the notebook back to Yuri and went on, “However, if you feel the need to have your memory refreshed on this subject, my assistants will be more than happy to oblige, I am sure.” He paused to let everyone absorb the meaning of his words. “That’s all.” He turned and walked out of the room.

Both Yuris followed right behind him. They exchanged a look as they went down the hall.

_ Professional behaviour, _ the first assistant mouthed at the second one with a meaningful look.

The fatigue, the anxiety and the frustration all mixed together to give an unexpected result: Yuuri laughed.

Victor stopped and turned around to stare at him.

To his great horror, Yuuri found that he couldn’t stop. “S-sorry… It’s just…” He couldn’t get any more words out and braced himself for a sharp word or a whole dozen of them.

Victor remained silent.

Yuuri raised his eyes as the laughter abated and fear took its place.

There was a smile on Victor’s face and Yuuri wondered if his fatigue was turning into madness again. He froze on the spot, not knowing what to do or say and unable to break the eye contact.

Yuri cleared his throat loudly. “The Christmas list is still waiting for us,” he reminded the world in general.

“Yes.” Yuuri forced himself to tear his eyes away and then it was just a matter of picking the right direction and putting one foot in front of the other.

Victor fell into stride beside him. “How much of the list do you have left?”

Yuuri let the first assistant answer the question.

“Almost half of it.”

“Then I will leave you to it.” Victor sped up and returned to his office on his own.

“What the hell are you playing at?” Yuri demanded.

“What are you talking about?”

Yuri sighed. “Never mind. But, I would be careful, if I were you.”

 

They sat at the run-through the following morning. The first assistant was left to man the desk while the second assistant was tasked with taking notes. Victor sat on one side of him and Chris on the other. Chris kept a running commentary for Yuuri’s benefit.

One by one the models came out as the designer provided a thorough analysis of each piece, which Yuuri wrote down. He spoke in a calm, almost bored, tone of voice and Yuuri kept looking at Victor’s face to see what he thought of that.

“It’s Seung-Gil’s debut as a designer,” Chris told Yuuri in a whisper. “It’s always very important to give a good first impression.”

Yuuri wondered how to ask Chris why Seung-Gil didn’t look like he cared about anything, but Chris beat him to it.

“He’s always like that. Unless he’s drunk.” Something in Chris’s tone suggested a very funny story and Yuuri had to resist the temptation to ask for more details.

He looked at Victor instead. The editor sat with his arms crossed over his chest and an expression on his face that was hard to read.

“There’s a scale,” Chris told Yuuri. “One nod is good. Two nods – very good. There has only been one actual smile on record,” Chris’s voice dropped in volume, “and you’re talking to the proud recipient of that smile. I designed a piece three years ago, but never mind about that now. If he doesn’t like it, he shakes his head.”

Sara stepped out in a long red dress and a winning smile. “And this is the main piece,” Seung-Gil said. “The –” The explanation he was about to provide froze on his lips.

Everyone in the room looked at Victor. The editor pursed his lips.

“What does that mean?” Yuuri whispered to Chris.

“Catastrophe.”

Sara looked at Seung Gil, waiting for further instructions. Seung Gil looked like someone whose patience had run out all at once, leaving him empty-handed. “Just go,” he said quietly.

Victor rose to his feet and walked out.

“B-but it was… That was…” Yuuri stuttered.

“You still don’t get it, do you?” Chris asked. “His opinion is the only one that matters. Alright,” he turned around and smiled at the models. “You, my dears, can go home. Seung-Gil, back to the drawing board.” He nodded at the door and the two of them walked out.

Yuuri returned to his desk in a thoughtful mood. _I’m glad I’m not a designer. I don’t understand what was so bad about that dress. It looked just like everything else we’ve used before… Unless, that’s what was wrong with it._

He eyed his half of the Christmas list with dread. He was about to get up for the next bottle when someone stopped in front of his desk. He looked up into Victor’s face.

“Yuuri, can you draw?”

“S-sorry?” Yuuri stammered.

“I’m not talking about making a work of art, but rough sketches. Can you sketch?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Grab some paper and something to draw with. I don’t want the designer to waste my time deciding which is the right pen to use. And go get him.”

They gathered in Victor’s office. Yuuri sat at the desk with the pen and paper in front of him. Seung-Gil and Chris argued over the details of the dress. Chris leaned over one side of the table and Seung-Gil – over the other as they gave Yuuri contradictory instructions and exchanged hostile looks. This went on for almost half an hour before Victor interrupted.

“No, I can’t work like this.” He’d been silent up until that point. “Yuuri, pin the papers up on the board.” He pointed at the board next to him.

Yuuri did as he was told and stepped back. Victor studied the sketch critically.

“May I?” He took the pen out of Yuuri’s hand and added several details and then scratched the whole thing out and drew something new.

“Something like this,” he said.

“No,” Seung-Gil argued. “This is _my_ debut. It will have _my_ designs.”

“Then you will have to come up with something that I like.”

Yuuri looked at Seung-Gil, surprised that the designer was actually arguing with Victor.

“And you’re not leaving until I see it,” Victor added.

“As if you can –”

“I’ll just have your name removed from the list, shall I? Plenty of other designers –”

“Alright, alright.”

Seung-Gil worked on his own version while Chris and Victor watched. Yuuri wondered if he should leave and started to slowly edge towards the door when Victor called out his name.

“Yes?” Yuuri walked back.

 

Victor wasn’t pleased. Seung-Gil was being his usual stubborn self, but the editor was angrier than normal and a voice he never listened to suggested he let the designer do what he wanted and face the consequences. He needed to talk to Yuuri, but there were always other people around. He was suddenly conscious of the sheer number of people that surrounded him on a daily basis.

“Yuuri,” he called.

“Yes?” The boy walked back, as obedient as always.

He remembered his laugh and smiled. _Can I talk to you for a moment?_ The words rose in his throat, ready to be said, but he couldn’t get them out.

Yuuri stood, waiting patiently.

_ I can tell you to fetch me almost anything, but I can’t force you to like me. I don’t want anything, though, not the kind of anything you bring me day after day, anyway. _

Forgetting himself, he reached for Yuuri’s hand, but stopped just in time. “Dinner,” he said at last, not feeling hungry at all. “We’ll all need dinner.”

Yuuri nodded and left the room.

Victor watched him go and then ran out after him.

He caught up with Yuuri by the elevators.

Yuuri spun around and stared at him in surprise.

_ Let’s forget everything and have dinner together, _ Victor thought.

“Was there something else?” Yuuri asked coldly.

They’d told him several times that he was charming, that he could appear out of nowhere and sweep someone off their feet. _Who?_ he’d asked jokingly. _Anyone_ , they’d said.

He stood there, almost trembling. “I wanted to ask…” He paused.

“Yes?”

“How long will it take?” In that moment he hated himself more than anything.

 

_ Free! Free at last!  _ True, it was for a given value of freedom and for a limited amount of time, but he could step outside. He could breathe the relatively fresh air of the New York streets. He could… be called back by his boss.

“Was there something else?” Yuuri stared at Victor who seemed to be hell bent on prolonging every painful moment into eternity.

And there it was again: that little voice that made people do stupid things. Except, instead of telling him to jump when he was high up somewhere, it was telling him to do something else. And, perhaps, in a way, it _was_ like jumping from a great height.

“I wanted to ask…” Victor paused, turning each second into a minute and each minute into an hour.

“Yes?” The question had come out ruder than Yuuri had intended.

“How long will it take?”

_ How on Earth should I know? _ “An hour,” he lied.

Victor took his hands and gave them a gentle squeeze. “Hurry back,” he said quietly and Yuuri thought he saw something in those eyes, but that was just his imagination…

…Wasn’t it?

He nodded and rushed off. _The stupid idiot probably just wants his food faster._

He went at breakneck speed, running from the elevator almost out onto the road, hunting around for a taxi and completely forgetting that the only reason he’d gone off to get dinner in person was so he could be away from the office for as long as possible. He might as well have ordered over the phone.

He stood in the restaurant, waiting for the food when his phone rang. He pulled it out, trembling again.

“Victor– Yuuri speaking.”

“Yuuri, where are you?”

_ Getting your food, you bastard! _ “I’m waiting for the food. It’s almost ready.”

There was a short pause and then Victor said. “Cancel the order. Seung-Gil just came up with the design. I sent them both home. You can go too. That’s all.” He hung up.

Yuuri cursed and then turned around and caught the eye of the waiter carrying the food out to him. “Give it to someone else,” he said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Take it to a homeless shelter, or give it to someone on the street.” He wasn’t going to let it go to waste, but he was too angry to eat it himself. Besides, he’d ordered three portions.

He spun around and walked out.

_ Go home, he says! I still have your stupid Christmas list to deal with, Santa Claus! _ He took another taxi back and then stormed all the way back to his desk.

Only once he sat down did he remember that he hadn’t eaten for several hours. He sighed.

Yuri had gone home. It was a sure sign that Yuuri shouldn’t have bothered returning to the office.

What would happen if they didn’t get through the whole list? Would the world end? Obviously not!

He rose to his feet and swayed a little.

_ I can do this. I just have to go back downstairs, get a taxi and go home. And then I can eat. Or I can go to a restaurant. Eat out like, like… other people with actual lives. _ He tried to remember what his life had been like before this job and found that he couldn’t.

He pulled his coat on and willed himself to walk back to the door.

“Yuuri?” That was Victor. Of course he was still in his office. Plotting tomorrow’s torture session, without a doubt.

He turned to face him and forced his face into a smile. “Yes?”

“What are you doing here? I thought I sent you home.”

_ You did and like a moron I went here instead. _ “I wanted to…” He felt himself sway again. _Oh not now! Surely I have_ some _energy left!_

He felt Victor’s hands on his shoulders and stared up into his face.

“You’re falling over,” Victor said.

“I’m fine,” he lied.

“Your face is pale.” Victor’s hand was under Yuuri’s chin. “When did you last eat?”

“I…” When _did_ he last eat? He couldn’t remember.

“Come on, I know a good place.”

“But, I can’t…” _I can’t go with you. I don’t want to go with you._

Victor led him to the elevator and they descended together. Yuuri spent the whole ride pretending that his shoes were the most interesting things on the planet.

They took Victor’s car to a place the name of which Yuuri didn’t catch. Yuuri spent the whole ride sitting as far away from his boss as possible. When they arrived Victor opened the car door for him. Yuuri felt himself sway as he stepped out.

“Lean on my arm,” Victor said, offering it to Yuuri. “You look ready to fall over.”

So Yuuri did as he was told.

They entered the restaurant and Yuuri was blinded by the sheer splendor of the place. He hadn’t thought it was possible at the time, but now he was in a restaurant that looked even more expensive than the place where he’d met the editors of other fashion magazines.

“Mr. Nikiforov!” the maître d’ greeted him happily. “What an honour to have you here again! And with a new friend this time!”

“Hello, Tomas,” Victor nodded and added in a quieter tone of voice, “Stéphane and I come here regularly. Our usual table, please, Tomas.”

They followed Tomas to the table and Yuuri felt his head spin from all of the food smells as they attacked his senses.

Victor helped him out of his coat and into his seat before taking the seat opposite. The occupants of the table were hidden from other people’s view.  

The waiter appeared as if out of nowhere. He took their coats and brought them menus.

Yuuri stared at the food menu and then at the wine menu and realized that none of the words on the page held any meaning for him. There also didn’t seem to be any prices in the menu.

“Can I order for both of us?” Victor asked. “There is a very delicious dish they make here. You have to try it. It’s how I got Stéphane here the first time around.”

 Yuuri nodded. Victor called the waiter over and ordered something. Yuuri studied the tablecloth and cutlery, trying to find something for his mind to occupy itself with.

“This dish is only made here, as far as I know. At least in New York, you can’t get it anywhere else.”

Victor must have also ordered wine, because the waiter returned with a bottle and talked at length about the glasses and how their shape changed the taste of the wine. Yuuri nodded absently and tried a bit for show and then put the glass down and ignored it for the rest of the evening.

“What are you thinking about?” Victor asked after a while, putting his hand on Yuuri’s.

_ If I will pass out before the food arrives, or after. I might drop face-first into whatever it was he ordered, won’t that be a great way to lose face! _ “Nothing much…” Yuuri said absently.

There he was after _nothing happened,_ sitting in a restaurant with his boss. There was a candle on the table and a couple of flowers in a vase. The mad part of his brain was suddenly very keen on working overtime.

_ I have to leave right now, _ he thought as they brought the food and Victor pulled his hand away.

“May I take you home afterwards?” Victor asked.

Yuuri barely registered that Victor had said anything. _Right now_ , kept echoing in his head.

His appetite evaporated. He put his knife and fork down. “I need to go.”

“Go?” Victor repeated in surprise. “But what about dessert?”

Yuuri stared at Victor.

 

Victor kept trying to guess what was on Yuuri’s mind as they ate. The boy’s eyes remained fixed on the contents of his plate, but the faraway look suggested that he was thinking about something other than the best dish in all of New York.

There went that idea. Dinner together, indeed! But he wasn’t going to give up just yet.

“May I take you home afterwards?”

The question must have offended him, because Yuuri stood up without even finishing his food. “I need to go.”

“Go? But what about dessert?” Was that really _his_ voice? Was that really how he sounded? Desperate and hurt? Him?

For the first time that evening Yuuri looked Victor straight in the eye. Hope bloomed.

“I promised my friend to meet with him,” Yuuri said.

_ You just don’t want to say ‘no’ outright. Please change your mind. Please stay. _

“I’ll take care of the…” Yuuri ran off only stopping when the waiter caught up with him to return his coat, “…bill.”

Victor stared after him. He downed the contents of his glass and sighed. He’d imagined taking Yuuri home, holding his hand in the car and then maybe getting a goodbye kiss and a promise to see each other the next day.

He still would, but it wouldn’t be the same.

He skipped dessert and went to his usual place for drinks instead.

When Victor’s first drink arrived it brought with it the mad hope that Yuuri would come and find him. By the third drink this crystallized into a certainty. He even kept glancing at his watch as if they’d agreed on a specific time. He spent a long time after the third drink debating if he wanted more, but then the fourth drink brought with it the realization that Yuuri wasn’t going to come and the fifth made him reach for his phone and call his driver.

When he stepped out into the cold air the wind and the disappointment both had a sobering effect.

He would have to try harder the next day. This wasn’t good enough.

 

Yuuri went straight home and collapsed on his bed without bothering to take any of his clothes off.

In the morning – oh miracle of miracles – he woke up feeling more awake than he’d felt in the past few weeks. He also woke up with a fully-formed decision in his mind. It was obvious that he couldn’t trust himself alone with Victor, so he promised his reflection as he brushed his teeth to make sure there was always someone else in the room with them.

Or better yet: that he will not be in the same room as him unless it was absolutely necessary.


	11. The Three Wishes of Yuuri Katsuki

That morning Victor oversaw a photoshoot for the spring jackets. For Yuuri this translated into an hour of running around, fetching models and then grabbing various items for those models, doing his best to stay out of the editor’s way. The only people who seemed to be as busy as him were the ones who were setting up the backdrop for the photos, since Victor didn’t seem to be pleased with any of the adjustments they made and kept giving them contradictory instructions.

Yuuri stumbled into Chris partway through the morning and the two of them stood off to one side for a conversation. It gave Yuuri a chance to catch his breath.

“Because you’re new around here and just generally new to all this I will say something I wouldn’t normally say,” Chris began and Yuuri braced himself. “It isn’t normal for the editor to demand that his assistants wait on him at all hours, always hovering like some kind of waiters at a restaurant. It isn’t normal for him to pay them so much attention either.”

Yuuri opened his mouth.

“Don’t say anything. Just hear me out. You don’t owe me any kind of explanation, or – God forbid – a confession. What you do is entirely your own business. I just want to ask you to think about this: what do _you_ want. Not: what does the public want, or what does the editor want, but what does Yuuri Katsuki want. You don’t need to tell me the answer, but think about it.”

“Why are you saying this?”

“Because amid all of this,” Chris made a gesture taking in the bustle around them, “it’s very easy to get distracted and lost. Sometimes we give up what we want and sometimes we do questionable things to get it, but I think it’s very important to know exactly what it is that we want.” He smiled and patted Yuuri on the shoulder. “You’re smart. You’ll figure it out.”

“Yuuri!” Victor’s voice rang out above everyone else’s chatter and Yuuri dashed off to see what the editor of _Runway_ wanted this time.

_What do I want? Sleep is a good one. Food too, if I’m allowed two wishes._

Yuuri joined Victor and waited for the editor to tell him what his current wish was (or to hint at it at least).

“Call Yuri and tell him I need Emil here right now.”

“I can call Emil,” Yuuri volunteered.

“He’s not answering his phone,” Victor told him.

“Then I’ll find him.”

“No, I need you to stay here.”

_Why? Why do you need me by your side all the time?_

The people around them were rushing back and forth and – for a moment – no one was looking their way. Victor put his hand over Yuuri’s for just a second and for just a second Yuuri felt very warm. The whole time Victor was facing the other way and as soon as he took his hand away Yuuri became convinced that he’d imagined it.

He pulled out his phone and called Yuri. The movement had come automatically via whatever part of his brain was still interpreting Victor’s instructions and he’d barely even registered he’d done it, but what else could he do?

The first assistant rewarded him with an angry string of curses, which brought him back to the present. Yuuri took a deep breath and explained the situation only to be cut off by more swear words.

“I’m manning the damn desk, aren’t I? _You_ go!”

Yuuri opened his mouth to argue, but didn’t get a chance.

“Tell Victor that Patrick just called and I’m dealing with his existential crisis, so I can’t leave the desk.”

Yuuri agreed and hung up. “Yuri needs my help.”

Victor made a dismissive gesture. “He’s been my assistant for several years. He can handle it.”

And then Yuuri had an idea, “But if he leaves, then there will be no one to answer the phones when they ring,” he pointed out. “I’ll go and come back. I’m sure I can find Emil quickly.”

“If you’re sure.” Yuuri turned to go. “And Yuuri?”

“Yes?”

This time Victor turned and he was looking at him. “Hurry back. I have more errands for you.”

Yuuri was suddenly aware of the fact that the rest of the room was staring at the both of them as if they were performing in a play. There was something odd about Victor’s tone and, for the smallest fraction of an instant, he thought he’d heard a tremble. No, that was impossible. Completely impossible. He was going mad. It was this place, and this job, and these people. They were all driving him insane.

“Yes,” he said and left.

 

Yuuri left the room and it was as if he took something with him. Victor was prepared to swear that it was darker and colder now.

Everyone was milling about around him, all uncertain and disorganized.

He drew himself up to his full height and walked through the room.

The models stood off to one side, chatting about something in hushed tones. He needed Emil here: he had an eye for composition when it came to deciding where each model belonged and in a photoshoot with this many models at once this was very important. He thought he could deal with it on his own, but after the headache the backdrop gave him, he needed Emil to oversee the rest.

Victor walked up to the group and they straightened up as soon as they saw him.

“V-Victor,” one of them stammered.

Her neighbour elbowed her in the ribs. Victor stopped and gave her a critical look. She trembled slightly as a blush spread over her cheeks. Something was off about her clothing. He circled her.

“Stand straight,” he ordered. “What’s the matter with you? Are you cold?”

“N-no, Victor.”

“Then why are you trembling?” He stepped around and stood before her. “And your face is red.”

“I… uh…” she stammered out something incoherent in response, but Victor wasn’t listening.

He was fixing her clothes. “This is unacceptable,” he told her, adjusting the folds of the skirt. “No, this won’t do at all. Stand still.”

She froze on the spot.

“Alright, while I wait for Emil, I will try to sort this out. Every model to me!”

They flocked to him, surrounding him on all sides. He clicked his tongue in disapproval. If he hadn’t known better, he would’ve suspected that they’d all deliberately messed up their outfits.

He had to send one off to get her makeup redone. She returned almost right away.

“Georgi is gone, sir.”

_Alright, I’ve had enough._ He clapped his hands for attention and their eyes all focused on him. “What is going on?”

There was a long heavy silence.

“Is it true?” someone called out at last.

“Is what true?”

“The Christmas party!” the person exclaimed. Everyone exchanged uneasy looks.

“The party isn’t cancelled, if that’s what you’re asking.” Victor was starting to wonder where this was going.

“Is the editor of _Fantastic Man_ coming this year?”

“I invited him and since it seems to be a tradition that the editor of _Fantastic Man_ ignores invitations from the editor of _Runway_ , I don’t see why this Christmas will be any different.”

“But my friend Milo said he’s planning to come this year! He’s been planning for weeks!” one of the models exclaimed.

“He’s just the editor of another fashion magazine,” Victor said. “We’ll have several of those.”

“But everyone knows he’s bad luck!” someone exclaimed and everyone nodded.

Victor had heard about the odd superstitions surrounding the editor of _Fantastic Man_ and often wondered where they’d come from. They were all absurd and obviously untrue. They ranged from “it’s bad luck to say his name in the Elias-Clarke building” to “if you stand in front of a mirror and say his name three times, his face will appear instead of your reflection.”

“Everyone calm down! If I see anyone panicking about this they will be dismissed on the spot. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Victor.”

“Now, you,” he looked at the model with the messed up makeup, “come with me. I’ll fix this myself. Everyone else is to remain in this room.” The second assistant’s face appeared in front of his mind’s eye. “If Yuuri comes, tell him to wait for me here.”

He walked briskly down the hall, the model running to keep up with him. Damn! Amid all this panic he’d lost Yuuri. Was Emil panicking as well? Was that why he wasn’t answering his phone?

The makeup studio was completely empty. Victor found a spot, ordered the model to sit down and gathered everything he would need from around the room, placing it all in a big pile he would be able to reach.

As he worked he found himself thinking of Yuuri. How he’d leant on Victor’s arm at the restaurant. How he was lost in a world of his own all through their dinner together. What could he do? How could he win the boy over?

He examined the model’s eyes critically, sighed and reached for the eyeliner.

The sound of footsteps made him look up from his work.

Yuuri stood in the doorway. “I was… uh… looking for Emil.” There was an odd expression on his face that Victor couldn’t interpret. “I mean, I still am. He isn’t anywhere.”

“He must be panicking just like everyone else.”

“Panicking? Why?”

“Everyone seems to be worried about the Christmas Party.”

Now Yuuri looked worried too.

 

Wherever Emil was, Yuuri couldn’t find him. He went through several floors until he came to the makeup studio and found the editor of _Runway_ instead. And Victor wasn’t alone.

He was enjoying the company of one of the models who sat with her hands on her lap, accepting the editor’s attention obediently.

Victor raised his head and Yuuri noticed the object in his hand.

_Oh God, he was putting on her makeup! I thought he was…_ He realized his mind was well on its way for dangerous territory and tried to stop thinking about anything, but his brain refused to listen. _I mean, of course, he was. He’s the editor of the fashion magazine. But he usually has other people do this. But even if he was kissing her, what does it matter to me? I shouldn’t care! It has nothing to do with me! Oh damn, I need to say something._

“I was… uh… looking for Emil. I mean, I still am. He isn’t anywhere.” He wished he could stop talking.

Victor sighed. “He must be panicking just like everyone else.”

“Panicking? Why?” _What else is going on and why didn’t anyone tell me?_

“Everyone seems to be worried about the Christmas Party.”

_They are? Why? Should I be worried?_ Panic rose inside him, trying to overwhelm all of the other feelings and it came in a close second place. The feeling from before was still very much there and refused to go.

“Stay here,” Victor told the model. “Yuuri, follow me.” He walked into the next room.

This one was also empty and all of the mirrors on the walls made it seem like the room went on forever in every direction.

Victor crossed his arms over his chest as his face assumed an expression that terrified Yuuri. “I’m starting to get fed up with how disorganized everything is today. I don’t know where they get these rumours from, but if you know anything, _anything at all_ , you need to tell me.” In the mirrors around them an infinite number of Victors interrogated an infinite number of Yuuris.

_What the hell is he talking about? What rumours? Wait. Are there rumours about_ us _going around? Is that what he means?_ “Rumours?”

“Yes. I’m referring to the ones about the guests that I _invited_.”

Yuuri hadn’t seen the full list. Apparently, it was too important for him and the first assistant had dealt with it. He only had half the list and only because those were the names he was supposed to commit to memory. Each one had come with a photo. Had there been anyone special on that list? Apart from everyone. He couldn’t remember.

Victor’s tone suggested he was hinting at something he expected Yuuri to know, but Yuuri couldn’t think what it could possibly be.

“I haven’t heard any rumours.” That felt like a safe answer.

“Fine,” Victor turned away and looked ready to leave.

Yuuri’s mind chose that moment to project before his eyes the image of Victor leaning towards the model, one of his hands holding her head.

And all of his resolve to stay away from Victor went out the window.

 

Victor had a feeling that if ever he would lose his temper this would be the day. He was starting to get a strong suspicion that everyone was in on some kind of prank with him as the intended target. It was the only way he could explain their behaviour (apart from a rare case of collective madness).

He questioned his assistant, wondering if he knew anything about it. When Yuuri panicked Victor suspected him to be the one responsible, mistaking the panic for guilt, but there was so much sincerity in his tone when he said he didn’t know anything that Victor believed him.

“Fine.” He would just have to find out who it was himself even if that meant interrogating everyone one by one.

“Victor,” Yuuri called.

The editor turned back around. “Was there something else?”

Yuuri approached Victor with several confident strides. One moment they stood next to each other. The next – Yuuri pushed him against the wall, his lips pressed against Victor’s as his hands travelled up his arms. All of Victor’s suspicions were forgotten in that moment.

Yuuri released Victor and stepped back. “I hate you,” he said. “I really, really hate you.”

Victor just stared. The look in Yuuri’s eyes, his tone of voice and his body language all translated into the opposite.

“I hate you,” Yuuri repeated passionately the way others confessed their love. “You are the absolute worst and I hate you.”

Victor stepped forward and caught him in another kiss. He felt Yuuri’s hands on his shoulders again and prepared to be pushed away, but Yuuri pulled him closer.

It is said, by people much older and wiser than the writer of this story, that the distance between the deepest love and the darkest hate is as thin as rice paper and – by the purest of coincidences – that was roughly the same as the distance between them at that moment.

Victor had gone out with someone before. _Before._ Before the career. Before the ambitious rise to the top. Before when he had time for others. Their relationship hadn’t gone on for long, but it had gone far enough. It had been his last serious relationship; everything after that had been too brief to be worth remembering.

He’d never been kissed the way Yuuri kissed him then.

_Oh my god!_

Yuuri released him and there was a triumphant glint in his eyes that vanished almost right away.

“I… ah… I need to go…” he took a step back. “I… have to find Emil.” He turned away and ran out of the room.

Victor stared after him. “Emil…” he echoed. “…Yes. Yes, of course.”

 

The models in the Elias-Clarke building loved pranks and model Chihoko was the mastermind behind a majority of them. She enjoyed pretending to be as thick as brick while pulling the metaphorical carpet from out from under someone. Lately her target had become the editor of _Runway_ himself, complete with his two assistants. It disgusted her how obedient those two were. The first assistant seemed to be constantly on the verge of murdering someone, so she left him for later. The second assistant was cute and messing with him was all kinds of fun.

She’d been the one to spread the rumour about the editor of _Fantastic Man_. Everyone always panicked about what to wear to the Christmas Party, preparing several months in advance only to change their mind at the very last minute. Now they were in complete disarray. She messed up her makeup and made sure that Georgi wouldn’t be there to fix everything like he always did. Then she played the frightened and embarrassed model.

Chihoko texted her friends while the editor questioned his assistant in the next room. The boy didn’t know anything, of course. He barely even knew anything about clothes. It was a well-known fact among the models that Chris dressed the second assistant and they often laughed about it.

She was just wondering if she could make the second assistant appear responsible, when she heard him say “I hate you.”

Chihoko raised her eyes from her phone. The tone of voice was hard to hear, but the words rang out loud and clear.

“You are the absolute worst and I hate you.”

Who knew the boy had the guts to say that to his boss’s face?

There was a short silence after that and she chuckled to herself, imagining the expression on Victor’s face. She waited for the editor to say something, but he was silent.

A muffled noise followed and then Yuuri said something, but she couldn’t make out any of the words this time. Victor replied in an equally quiet tone of voice.

_God, I hope Yuuri punched him._

Yuuri ran out and she only caught sight of his red face. Victor followed soon after. Chihoko’s eyes swept from his face downwards. _Looks like he didn’t hit you after all. Oh well, I knew it was too good to be true._

She stood up, seeing the dazed look on the editor’s face.

“Time to go back?” she suggested, putting her phone away.

Victor couldn’t tear his eyes away from the doorway Yuuri had run through. “Yes…”

 

Yuuri stood in a corner of a hallway, his hands on his face. _What is wrong with me? What the hell was that? I can’t believe I just…_

“You okay, Yuuri?”

He pulled his hands down, adjusted his glasses, and saw Emil standing in front of him. “Ah! I’ve been looking for you!”

“You have?”

“Where were you?”

“Michele was upset, so I took him out for lunch to cheer him up. He’s Sara’s brother. You know Sara?”

Yuuri nodded. “But you didn’t answer any of our phone calls!”

Emil pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Looks like my phone battery died. Oops. Sorry about that. What did you need me for, anyway?”

“Victor needs your help with the photoshoot.”

“He told me he’d rather do it himself.” Emil grinned. “Well, which room is it?”

“The West Room. I need to go back to the office and help Yuri,” he added before Emil suggested they go together and turned away. _Please dear God, send me a miracle. Let me survive until the end of the day without seeing his face!_

 

Yuuri spent the rest of the day at his desk with his personal phone switched off. Each time Victor called the office (and he called every 15 minutes) Yuri would answer and tell the editor that the second assistant couldn’t come to the phone. He came up with excuses that got more ridiculous every time, but Victor didn’t argue. The two Yuris hadn’t discussed this, but the first assistant took one look at the second assistant and took charge of running interference between the editor and his second assistant. Together they made good progress through the never ending Christmas list.

Yuri’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out to read his text message. “He’s coming,” Yuri warned.

Yuuri slipped out and hid in the bathroom.

Victor came in, looked around for Yuuri and sighed. “I need coffee,” he said and disappeared into his office.

Yuri texted Yuuri some instructions and returned to the Christmas list.

The two assistants worked together to achieve the desired goal: Victor didn’t see Yuuri for the rest of that day. This meant that Yuuri now owed the first assistant a big favour and Yuri already had one in mind.

 

Was it coincidence or was Yuuri playing some kind of a game with him? Victor sat in his office, unable to understand what was happening. First the boy would do something, and then he’d run off and shun his company. Victor gave chase, unable to stop.

_I’ll play your game, Yuuri, but only for so long. I don’t think I can play this game forever. I have excellent self-control and as flattering as your attentions are…_ But he couldn’t even convince himself.

He paced the office, which went against his nature, since he hated watching other people do it. _I want to see you. I need to see you._

But Yuuri was always elsewhere. He’d just left or was due to return shortly and then shortly turned into sometime later.

 

It was past midnight when Yuuri left the office. Victor’s Christmas list was finally done. He’d almost danced from joy when he made it to the final name. As he stepped out of the Elias-Clarke building and took in the completely empty street it started to pour.

_Just my luck! Just when it starts to go my way something has to go and ruin everything!_

A click and a soft swishing noise made him look to his right. The editor of _Runway_ held up an umbrella over both of their heads.

Yuuri paled and stepped away.

“If you’re about to run off, take it,” Victor held out his umbrella. “My car just arrived and I don’t want you to catch a cold from this.”

_Otherwise you’ll have to find another victim,_ Yuuri thought and accepted it.

Victor took a step towards his car and changed his mind. “We need to talk,” he said.

Yuuri felt his mouth go dry. “About what?”

“About …well, to put it simply: your behaviour towards me.”

_Oh wonderful! Just fire me. You might as well._ Yuuri stared down at his feet.

Several awkward minutes passed. Victor remained silent and Yuuri didn’t know what he could say. His feet were getting wet as well as the bottom of his pants. The rain bounced off the ground and Yuuri tried to focus on his frustration that it was almost Christmas and it was raining.

It looked like it would be another lonely Christmas. Everyone had plans. Phichit had some fun party planned at work. _I have a Christmas party at work this year, too_ , he remembered, _but…_

He was suddenly aware of the fact that his mind was wandering and that Victor had just said something he’d missed entirely.

_What was that?_

“Yuuri,” Victor was closer now, but Yuuri no longer cared. “Are you alright?”

He looked up into the editor’s face, surprised by the simple question. Wasn’t Victor going to lecture him on his behaviour?

Victor smiled. “There’s water on your face.” He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped Yuuri’s cheeks.

Yuuri stared up at Victor, clutching the umbrella’s handle tightly with both hands. The gentleness of the editor’s touch had caught him by surprise. The rain fell harder around them.

Victor brought the handkerchief to his own cheek.

“Y-your signature pattern!” Yuuri exclaimed, noticing it for the first time.

“A handkerchief, no matter how expensive, needs to fulfil its function,” Victor told him, “otherwise it’s just a piece of fabric.” He folded it with several simple movements and tucked it back into his breast pocket. “I want to see you tomorrow.”

“I’ll be here,” Yuuri reminded him.

Victor took Yuuri’s face in both of his hands. “I don’t mean at work.”

Yuuri closed his eyes. His heart beat louder in his chest.

Victor leant closer and whispered into his ear, “Let’s meet somewhere after work.”

“Where?” Yuuri asked. _Why am I whispering?_

“Anywhere. We can decide tomorrow. Will you promise not to change your mind?”

“I promise.” Yuuri opened his eyes and looked into Victor’s face.

“Good night.”

Yuuri returned home in a daze. He walked past Phichit into his room where he locked himself away before dropping onto his bed and staring up at the ceiling.

Victor’s umbrella was still in his hands and he clutched it to his chest, despite the fact that it was very wet. His clothing was soaked, but he was so warm he didn’t feel it.

Some people fall in love at first sight. They look down at the drunk half-dressed person rubbing themselves against them and think “This is perfection itself!” Others fall in love gradually, starting out as friends, then becoming best friends, then making the mistake of introducing them to their parents and finally realizing they were in love. Yuuri Katsuki came to love by the back door. He dived head first into hate and then flew straight past it into love. It made no sense and was absolutely unfair.

And now Yuuri had to decide what to do about it.

 

Victor arrived at the office early. It was Friday. It was almost Christmas. He had a date in the evening. Any of those three could’ve been the reason for his good mood, but only one of them mattered to him.

His assistants were already there. He dropped his coat on Yuuri’s desk as always and walked into his office. Two minutes later Yuuri was in his office with his coffee and a copy of his schedule.

Victor accepted both with a smile and watched Yuuri leave. Once the door closed he lowered his eyes and looked at his schedule. It was every office worker’s worst nightmare: a full day of back to back meetings. This, to Victor, meant only one thing: he could spend the whole day with his second assistant.

 

“You owe me a favour for yesterday,” the first assistant reminded the second one as soon as he returned to his desk.

“What do you have in mind?”

Yuri threw a look at the door to Victor’s office and walked up to Yuuri’s desk. “The Christmas party,” he said, putting his hands on Yuuri’s desk and leaning forward.

“What about it?”

“I want Beka to come to the Christmas Party.” Yuri straightened up. “What’s that smile for?”

“Nothing. I just thought it was nice of you to want to invite your friend, but how can we do that?”

“I’m going to add him to the list of guests. Victor never remembers everyone he invited, anyway. When he comes in and Victor greets him, like he greets all of his guests, we tell him he’s a rising star in fashion.” Yuri crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Yuuri, as if daring him to challenge this idea.

_He actually sat down and thought about this._ “Sounds like it should work. Won’t other people wonder who he is, though?”

Yuri waved his arm dismissively. “That’s only if he tries to talk to them. And he doesn’t care about them, so we’ll be fine.”

“Okay.”

“You promise not to tell anyone the truth?”

“I promise.”

Yuri nodded and returned to his desk.

 

A day stuffed with meetings is the kind of torture that the Spanish Inquisition had never dreamed of. The employees sit in a room full of people who don’t really want to be there and they listen to someone talk about something they’re only half interested in, or worse: not interested in at all. Someone is trying to text as discretely as possible. Someone else is doing their best to look interested. And someone is sleeping.

Yuuri eyed the person who’d fallen asleep and did his best to suppress his laughter. Victor sat on his right and Chris on his left and they both seemed determined to be the first to make Yuuri laugh. He tried to find someone else to stare at and noticed Mila texting.

Yakov was presenting sales figures in the most boring way known to man while Chris whispered to Yuuri that every three months Yakov changed the format to a more boring one.

“He’s drooling now,” Victor whispered, referring to the sleeping employee, and Yuuri bit his lip.

“…and what does that tell us?” Yakov went on. “Anyone?”

“That sales have increased,” Victor volunteered.

Yuuri tried to pay attention, but his mind kept wandering. Victor sat close enough for their elbows to brush against each other. The mad little voice in Yuuri’s mind kept trying to get him to stand up and scream something stupid at the top of his voice. It was so frustrating to sit next to Victor and not say a single word. He’d spent the night trying to think of all the things he could say, how he could explain his behaviour.

The meetings ended really late. Everyone headed home, moaning about the worst Friday of their lives.

“I suggest we meet tomorrow instead,” Victor said as everyone left. “Or do you already have plans?”

He was offering Yuuri a way out, but Yuuri had already burned his bridges.

“Tomorrow,” he said with a nod.

 

Saturday morning found Yuuri standing in front of the mirror in Phichit’s closet, trying on the clothes Chris had given him two days earlier. He would always get his outfits from the art director in batches of three or four and now he was trying to decide which was better.

He sighed. Phichit wasn’t there to give him his expert opinion (he’d left a note saying he was dealing with a crisis at work) and Yuuri still had no way of judging what was fashionable or not.

When he took the job he’d expected he would learn what was fashionable, but still he remained completely ignorant on the subject. Maybe style couldn’t be taught, maybe it was something people were born with after all.

There was nothing to do but give up. Who was he kidding? He was a simple assistant who was clueless about fashion while Victor was the most stylish man alive.

The voice of reason chose this moment to speak up. _He’s also your boss!_

Yuuri ignored it.

 

They started with lunch. Yuuri felt uncomfortable at first, sitting with his shoulders hunched and keeping his eyes fixed on his food, but Victor soon put him at ease. He told stories that made Yuuri laugh and Yuuri gradually relaxed.

“No, you’re kidding! I don’t believe that!”

“It’s true.”

Yuuri laughed again, this time leaning his head against Victor’s shoulder. “Ah! I’m sorry!” He backed away.

“Don’t apologize,” Victor said, moving closer.

He paid the bill and they left.

“I know a bar that plays really good music,” Victor told him, “but it’s still too early. Do you have any ideas what we can do to pass the time?”

Yuuri took his hand. “I don’t know,” he said and smiled.

“Neither do I,” Victor smiled back.

 

They spent the remaining hours of daylight wandering the streets between the most expensive stores of the city. Victor knew all the store owners and got pulled into conversations with all of them while Yuuri stood awkwardly to one side.

“That was a bad idea,” Victor admitted after the third one. “How do you feel about dessert?”

Yuuri nodded and soon found himself in a place with a familiar name. It wasn’t until the waiter brought his order and he saw the gold flakes that it clicked. This was the thousand-dollar sundae! He’d once read an article about it and rolled his eyes at the extravagance of the rich. Now he was sitting at a table with it in front of him.

He gave Victor a look of shock. _I can’t eat this!_

Victor smiled, picked up his spoon and scooped up a small chunk as if it was the most ordinary ice cream in the world.

_Holy crap! One thousand dollar ice cream!_

Victor shifted forward in his seat. “Did you want me to feed it to you?”

_He’s insane! The people who made this are insane! And anyone who eats this is insane!_ He couldn’t get over the shock and had missed the meaning of Victor’s words completely, so he wasn’t prepared when Victor held out a spoonful of ice cream towards him.

“Here.”

What was the oddest part of the hour they’d spent in the restaurant? The fact that Yuuri – the same Yuuri who’d become a journalist to report the truth that the general public was often denied – actually ate dessert that was worth almost half of his monthly salary? The fact that the editor of _Runway_ – _his boss_ – fed it all one spoonful at a time to him? The fact that Victor – who always had someone else do everything for him – seemed to enjoy the entire experience immensely? Or the fact that when they finished the owner of the restaurant – having found out about his illustrious visitor – ran out to thank him for visiting his humble establishment in person?

_Humble establishment_. He’d actually said those words with a serious look on his face!

_You’re all crazy!_ Yuuri thought, and smiled, and nodded along with every word the owner said, and wished like mad that he could be somewhere else.

 

Victor felt as if he’d ascended to heaven. He sat in a bar by Yuuri’s side as they both listened to an elderly lady sing. They sat in semi darkness and Victor held Yuuri’s hand in between both of his.

There was something about the atmosphere in the bar that always got his imagination going, especially when he was listening to one of the best performers sing. How fitting was it then that Yuuri, who’d been his muse these last few weeks, was there with him!

He raised the boy’s hand to his lips and risked a look at his face.

Yuuri’s eyes shone.

_Let’s go somewhere together, anywhere._

The woman sang of unhappy love and lamented about her broken heart.

Victor shifted his chair closer to Yuuri and, forgetting himself, kissed the boy.

Yuuri responded, but when they pulled apart Victor saw the tears on his face.

“What’s wrong?” he whispered.

“The music is so sad,” Yuuri whispered back.

Victor brushed the tears off Yuuri’s cheeks. He’d spent most of his life around people who put on different faces to be what they weren’t and here was innocent Yuuri who wore his heart on his sleeve.

“We can leave, if it’s upsetting you.”

“No, I want to stay.”

Victor nodded.

They stayed late into the night until the bar closed and everyone was kicked out. Yuuri held onto Victor’s arm as they walked to Victor’s car. He leaned his head onto Victor’s shoulder.

“Where do you want me to take you?” Victor asked. “I just realized I don’t even know where you live.”

“I want to spend the night with you,” Yuuri whispered passionately.

 

After the dessert Yuuri was ready to leave, burnt bridges or not, but he let Victor take him to the bar as promised and as he sat there, angry at the whole world, the woman opened her mouth and sang.

Victor squeezed his hand, but Yuuri barely felt it. He was lost in another world until Victor’s kiss brought him back to the present.

“What’s wrong?” Victor asked and Yuuri realised he was crying.

“The music is so sad,” Yuuri tried to explain and knew that the words didn’t do his feelings justice.

Victor’s hands were on his face. “We can leave, if it’s upsetting you,” he offered.

“No, I want to stay,” Yuuri insisted.

He held onto Victor all through the evening and on their way back to the car.

Victor asked for his address and that was when Yuuri realized how disappointed he felt that it was over.

“I want to spend the night with you.” He felt the blood rush to his cheeks, but said it anyway.

Victor kissed him again, but briefly this time, turning away to walk up to his car and give instructions to his driver.

The driver lowered his window.

“I’m going home,” Victor told him.

Yuuri rushed to the car and opened the back door for him. Victor climbed inside and shifted over to let Yuuri join him.

They took the elevator up to Victor’s apartment, the presence of the elevator man making the trip really awkward, and stopped in front of the door.

“I… I have a key,” Yuuri remembered. The first assistant had given it to him a lifetime ago so he could bring in the Book. Now possession of the key held a different meaning.

Victor nodded and let him unlock the door. Yuuri swung it open, feeling uneasy again.

The voice of reason tried one last time. _This is a bad idea. You can still leave._

Victor closed the door behind him, removed his coat and walked into the living room where he sat down on the sofa. Yuuri hung his coat next to Victor’s and joined him, hesitating only for a moment.

_Maybe he’s tired. I should go._

Victor put an arm around Yuuri. “Do you want anything?”

They’d had a drink each at the bar. Yuuri, knowing how easy it was for him to go overboard, stopped there. He shifted closer to Victor and looked up into his face.

“I’m flattered,” Victor slid a hand over Yuuri’s cheek, “but, if you’ll excuse me…” He rose to his feet.

Yuuri stared at him in surprise and wondered what he would do next.

He wasn’t ready to watch Victor unbutton his jacket and then drape it over the back of the sofa. There was a smile on Victor’s face as he pulled his tie off slowly and dropped it on the sofa next to Yuuri. His shirt came next. Yuuri’s eyes followed Victor’s fingers down from the top button the bottom one. The shirt was folded carefully over the jacket. Victor paused at the belt and looked at Yuuri. The smile was wider now.

Yuuri felt his face go redder.

“I’d let you do the honours,” Victor told him, “but after the first time I know you don’t appreciate how much this costs.”

The belt tumbled onto the sofa. The pants joined the pile on the back of the sofa.

Yuuri lowered his eyes.

“Shyness at a time like this seems a bit unnecessary, don’t you think?”

“P-probably…”

And then Victor held his hands out. “May I?” he asked.

Yuuri nodded and Victor pulled him to his feet. He’d been so bold that time. Whatever had gotten into him then?

Victor took Yuuri’s hands in his. “Are you cold?”

He’d completely forgotten he was still wearing gloves.

“I’ll make sure you stay warm,” Victor promised, pulled one glove off and kissed Yuuri’s palm. “I’m always so impressed by Chris’ handiwork.”

The gloves joined the tie.

“Leather gloves handmade in Italy,” Victor said in a whisper. “I met the founder several times. His wife is an excellent cook.”

He slid his thumbs up over Yuuri’s lapels. “This jacket is one of a kind. I had a big argument over it with Ralph. He still thinks it’s awful. I like it. The detail here is very interesting.” He traced it out with his finger. “And, of course, the hidden inside pockets are a nice touch.”

He unfastened the buttons and folded the jacket outwards as if to study the inside pockets.

“It’s… comfortable…” Yuuri said for nothing better to say.

Victor slipped it off Yuuri’s shoulders and dropped it onto the sofa.

“Let’s see… Personally, I prefer to wear ties.” Victor slid a finger where a tie would normally be. “And that leaves us with your shirt.”

Yuuri waited for the story of this one, but Victor merely smiled and slowly unbuttoned it. Once he ran out of buttons Victor pulled the two parts of the shirt apart and ran his hands over Yuuri’s chest.

“They keep messing with the shape of sleeves,” Victor said, “but between you and me I prefer the simple classic shape.”

Victor pulled the shirt off slowly and Yuuri suddenly thought of unwrapping presents.

“You could be a model if you wanted to,” Victor said quietly.

_After barely eating and running around like crazy for the last few weeks anyone can_ , Yuuri thought.

Victor ran his hands up Yuuri’s back. “I’ve seen you before, you know. I didn’t recognize you when you came for your interview, but one day it just clicked.”

“You’ve seen me before? You mean in the street?”

Victor smiled. “I don’t remember what it was called. The … Blue something Club… What was the second word now?”

The blood rushed to Yuuri’s face. “Y-you saw me at…?” He was unable to finish the sentence.

“Yes. I thought you were rather good.” Yuuri lowered his eyes, not daring to see the expression on Victor’s face.

“What were you doing there?”

“I think the real question is what were _you_ doing there?” Victor’s hands were on his shoulders now.

Yuuri forced himself to look up into Victor’s face. “I needed money for college.”

“Usually people work at a shop or a café.” _He really thinks this is amusing. I bet he never had to work to pay for college!_

“Well I didn’t.”

“But pole dancing? Really?”

Yuuri’s face turned redder and he nodded.

“I’m sorry, I got distracted and didn’t finish.”

Yuuri pulled Victor into a kiss. He wasn’t sure he could stand another lecture about clothes.

“I do hope you’re not trying to play for time,” Victor said between kisses.

“What?”

“Or, perhaps, you’re just embarrassed?” he whispered into Yuuri’s ear, removing his glasses and leaving them on the table.

“I… ah… I don’t know…”

“You were in such a rush last time. Have you changed your mind since? I’m not going to force you into –”

“No, I –” Yuuri exclaimed and put a hand to his mouth.

Victor pulled it aside and kissed his wrist. “Yes?”

“I want this.”

“Then you shall have it.” There was a pause and then Victor spoke again. “I… don’t know how to quite broach the subject… You haven’t… prepared, by any chance?”

“Prepared?”

“Then I must admit that I have.”

Yuuri stared at him in confusion.

Victor sighed. “Your innocence is quite charming, even if it does throw me off somewhat. Tell me, how exactly did you work as a pole dancer with a mind like yours?”

And then it hit. “Oh!”

“ _Oh_ ,” Victor nodded. “I don’t wish to cause you discomfort.”

“Bedroom?”

“Yes. Lead the way?”

The first time Yuuri was in Victor’s bedroom he hadn’t had the time to take in any details and this time his mind was too busy with other things to think about interior design. He did get a good look at the dresser, or, to be more specific, the contents of the top drawer of one after Victor asked for them.

“I can’t help but be a little disappointed,” Victor admitted, pulling Yuuri’s pants off. “I was hoping for something a little bit more exciting.”

_It’s only underwear_ , were the words Yuuri didn’t say, conscious all too well of the kind of response he would get. He sat on the bed and stared down at Victor, who put his chin on one of Yuuri’s knees.

“I think I’ll have a word with Chris.”

_Does he ever stop thinking about clothes?_ Yuuri nodded, not knowing what he could possibly say to that.

“I have a few ideas, actually,” Victor said, removing the article that had so offended him.

“So do I: I know what we can do that doesn’t involve any clothes at all,” Yuuri whispered.   _And maybe we can change the topic, because if you don’t stop, I’m leaving._

Victor chuckled, but didn’t say anything.

_And now you’re probably thinking that for once my sense of fashion won’t be getting in the way. Dammit! Even now I’m so angry with you!_ He tried to push all thoughts to the back of his mind, but they came anyway. _And you only really paid attention to me when I was dressed nicely. Do you think I didn’t notice?_

He waited for Victor to tell him to lie down, but Victor went around the bed and lay down himself.

“Are your bedsheets worth several thousand dollars as well?” Yuuri couldn’t help remarking.

Victor chuckled. “They were a present.”

_Who gives bedsheets as a present?_

“I haven’t done this in a while, I’ll admit,” Victor went on as Yuuri took care of what Victor had called the preparations. He didn’t say anything to that.

Yuuri even remained silent when he climbed on top of him. For several minutes the silence was only broken by Victor gasping for breath and whispering Yuuri’s name.

“Yuuri…” he said in his normal tone and Yuuri tensed out of habit.

“Yes?”

“You’re so quiet. I thought you’d be saying my name, or something. What are you thinking about?”

_That I can’t decide if I’m angrier with you or me right now._ “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” he confirmed.

“Let’s switch positions,” Victor offered and Yuuri pulled away. Victor turned around and caught him before he could go anywhere. “Yuuri…” he whispered into his ear and kissed him again.

The movies always made such a big deal about the moment when people made love to each other for the first time. For whatever reason the concept of pleasure was always so important for them to portray, but Yuuri was too busy worrying to enjoy anything.

Which couldn’t be said for Victor, who seemed to be determined to show Yuuri how he thought it should be done, complete with whispering into Yuuri’s ear.

Yuuri’s mind wouldn’t stop. He’d really gone and done it now. Or – to use the worst euphemism ever – _done Victor_. _Now what? Do I have to talk to HR after this? I can imagine how that conversation will go!_

_Hello, HR, I have something to report._

_Good day. How can we help you?_

_I’d like to report a violation of the code of conduct._

_What is your complaint, sir?_

_I slept with my boss. Well, I say slept, but really we made passionate love to each other._

_Can you please tell us the name of your boss?_

_He’s the editor-in-chief of Runway._

_We would like to inform you that you have violated section something, paragraph something else, subparagraph another number, item a different number. But we wouldn’t object to getting some more details about this improper conduct._

_Yes, that is exactly what they’ll say,_ he thought, burying his face in the pillow and feeling Victor’s lips on his neck. _And then they’ll fire me for sure._

“Victor…” he whispered. _You’re all hands, why can’t you decide where you want to keep them?_

“Yuuri…” the editor of _Runway_ whispered into his ear.


	12. Not a Movie

There is an old cinematic trick that is often used in movies for the so-called “morning after scene”. It involves one of the parties lying in a bed on their side as the camera slides from their toes up to their face. Usually there is an artfully arranged blanket covering their body (or those parts of the body which need to be covered to let the movie keep its rating). The second party then walks out of the bathroom, or kitchen, or the next room and says something really sweet (or – again, depending on the genre – something really funny).

This was not the case here. The blankets that usually do such sterling work for the Decency Department were taking the day off and lying on the floor. Both parties lay on the bed in a painful tangle of limbs and one of them was snoring gently while the other tried his best to nudge them awake.

“Hmm?” Yuuri mumbled in his sleep, his eyes barely open and his brain not registering where he was.

“Ah! You’re awake, finally! Move over, my arm is numb!”

Yuuri leapt to the other side of the bed, nearly taking Victor with him. It hadn’t been some kind of deluded dream. It had actually happened!

“Is something wrong?” the editor asked, sitting up.

“N-no.” Yuuri was trying out the method of putting his hand over his heart to slow it down with limited success so far.

Victor crawled across the bed and put his hand over Yuuri’s. Yuuri stared into the face of the most stylish man on the planet. His hair was dishevelled, his face was red and he was completely naked. Based on the evidence before his eyes, it was hard to say that Victor really had a lot of style.

“What is it?” Victor asked quietly.

“It’s nothing.” _For the first time you look like a normal human being, albeit a naked one._ Yuuri smiled.

“Great! I was just thinking that since you’re here you can go get my coffee!” Victor took his hand away, got up and got a bathrobe from the small closet in his room. He paused at the doorway to his bathroom. “I suppose that means you should shower first.”

Yuuri got up and headed for the shower before his brain could untangle how exactly he’d ended up in this situation. _This is insane, completely crazy_ , he thought as he stood under a cold stream of water.

_ What did you expect?  _ the voice of reason piped up again. _I warned you._

_ What the hell do I do now? _

The answer came to him as he got out, wrapped in Victor’s towel: _as I’m told._

There was no dignified way to collect his clothes, but at least he managed to get dressed while Victor was in the shower and then he ran off to fetch the usual order of coffee.

 

When Yuuri returned Victor was dressed and looking as immaculate as ever. He took the coffee from Yuuri’s hand and wrinkled his nose. “You’re still in yesterday’s clothes! Get Chris to find you something else to wear.”

Yuuri opened his mouth to share with him everything he thought of that idea and opted for the easy option. “It’s Sunday,” he reminded Victor.

“I’ll let him know he needs to come in, then.” Victor pulled his phone out of his pocket.

Yuuri remained silent. _I want to strangle you right now._ He fought hard to suppress the thought, but it must have shown on his face, because Victor smiled.

“You haven’t had your morning coffee, have you? Here, you can finish mine,” he said and actually handed the cup to Yuuri.

Maybe he thought it was sweet, but that wasn’t the word Yuuri would’ve used to describe it (both the gesture and the coffee). He took it anyway.

He turned around and left the room, downing the remainder of the coffee and cringing at how bitter it was. _What did I expect? He’s a big prima donna! Sleeping with him isn’t going to change that!_

These thoughts kept him company as he took a taxi to work. He’d stopped thinking about the number of taxi rides he’d taken a long time ago. It was still early in the morning and the streets were full of churchgoers. Yuuri wasn’t religious – let alone Christian – but he couldn’t help praying for a miracle of some sort as he watched them.

_ Save me and I promise I’ll never do anything questionable again. I’ll spend the rest of my life working for a charity organization. _

“We’re here, sir,” the taxi driver announced.

He raised his eyes from his clenched hands and the Elias-Clarke building loomed outside the window. He handed the driver a 20-dollar bill and left.

Yuuri had worked at his job long enough to know that there was always someone at the security desk even if an employee felt mad enough to come in to work at midnight between Friday and Saturday. It took one hectic week to establish this fact.

He headed for the elevator and composed an apology for Chris in his head. He even imagined how Chris would tell him that it wasn’t good enough, that he should’ve come up with a way to avoid the situation altogether. And, perhaps because he had a perfect mental image of Chris, or maybe for some other reason, he had the kind of thought that he would’ve expected from Chris, but not at all from himself: _Sleeping in a penthouse suite on Fifth Avenue with the editor of_ Runway _should’ve been more fun_.

He stepped into the Wardrobe feeling ashamed of himself.

Yuuri ran into Chris before he had more time to think about this and it turned out that the art director already had a pile set aside for him. He handed him the top three items with a smile.

_ I can’t help but be a little disappointed. I was hoping for something a little bit more exciting. _ Victor’s words echoed in his head the moment he realized just what it was that Chris was holding out to him.

“Try these on first.”

Yuuri felt all the blood rush to his face. “W-what – How – What are you doing here, Chris? I mean…” _How did you get here so quickly?_

“Victor called me 15 minutes ago.” Chris shook his head in mock sadness. “How I missed such a small thing, I will never know!”

But he never missed the little details! He’d once spent a whole half hour picking a belt for Yuuri, how…

Yuuri looked into Chris’ face and stepped back. _Don’t tell me you planned this!_

“Well, will you try them on or not?”

Yuuri stammered out something incoherent before settling for a simpler thing to say. “Why?”

“I need to know what suits you best and _don’t_ look at me like that, you already know I’m not interested.”

“I d-didn’t…”

Chris merely nodded towards the fitting rooms.

Yuuri obeyed without thinking and disappeared behind one of the curtains.

He pulled all his clothes off and held up the first of the items when he heard voices coming from the other side of the curtain.

“I will at once.” That was Chris. His voice got further away with each word. “Yes, I understand.”

_ Oh Great, now he’s gone. Now I have to wait for him to get back and – _

The curtain was swept aside to reveal Victor.

Yuuri stared at him, all too aware of the fact that he was completely – as Chris would’ve said – _déshabillé_.

“Yuuri! There you are!” Victor exclaimed. “I’ve been looking for you!”

To say that Yuuri felt exposed would be to merely state the obvious.

His first thought was that he’d been caught in a crime. His second was to remember that he was standing in front of his boss and so he tried to cover himself with whatever was in his hands, forgetting that what he had wasn’t meant so much to cover as to pretend to cover while really revealing far more than he thought was necessary. And his last thought was that he was standing in front of the man he’d made love to the night before. Nakedness suddenly took on an entirely different meaning.

Yuuri’s mind presented him with images of the previous night, added a prediction of the minutes to come and then went into standby mode.

Victor’s eyes remained fixed on Yuuri’s face. His smile didn’t change. “Yuuri, I need my car seen to. That’s all.” He nodded, stepped back and closed the curtain.

Yuuri listened to the sound of his steps on the marble floor until the echoes died away.

He stood absolutely still, feeling as if someone had emptied a bucket of cold water over his head. _What just happened?_

After a while Yuuri heard Chris clear his throat.

Yuuri pulled on the item in his hands. “You can come in.”

Chris opened the curtain. “Where is Victor?”

“I don’t know.”

Chris raised his eyebrows.

“I really don’t.”

“In that case, turn around.”

Yuuri turned, trying not to think about the whatever-it-was that Chris had found for him. He tried not to think why they had it in the Wardrobe in the first place and then he tried not to think what it could possibly be called. Madness with lace and straps, probably.

“Hmm… I’m not really convinced. Try the rest of the pile,” Chris stepped out and closed the curtain.

_ Why did Victor come here? What was that about a car? How can there be something wrong with it? He had it looked at a week ago! _

It took a long time for Chris to pick something he was satisfied with. He even made Yuuri try several items again, muttering something about the devil being in the details when Yuuri started to protest. Yuuri briefly considered telling Chris that they didn’t care this much about undergarments when he did pole dancing at a club, but decided against it. His head was starting to spin from all of the combinations of lace, fine mesh and straps. The same fussing happened over the rest of his outfit. For whatever reason, Chris was more picky than usual and Yuuri would’ve probably been there until the following morning, if he hadn’t reminded Chris that he had errands to run.

 

When Yuuri stepped out of the Elias-Clarke building – dressed fancier than he’d ever been and mentally cursing whatever-the-hell it was that was trying to replace his underwear and failing – Victor’s car was there by the side of the road.

_ Doesn’t the driver get Sundays off? Am I going to have to drive it too? _

He walked up to it and nearly jumped when the driver’s door opened and Victor stepped out. He got the passenger door and held it for Yuuri.

“Would you care for a ride?”

It was hard to reconcile the person before him with the one Yuuri had woken up next to nearly 2 hours ago, or the person Yuuri worked for. The Victor charm was back and when he smiled at Yuuri the boy felt his heart skip a beat.

_ Maybe he’s just not a morning person.  _ Yuuri filed that thought under things to think about later and got into the front seat.

He watched Victor get behind the wheel and realization struck. _So you_ do _drive this crazy thing sometimes!_

“Hmm… let’s see…” Victor mumbled and Yuuri’s heart sank. “Ah!” he inserted the keys with a triumphant smile.

_ We’re going to die. We’re going to die and people will wonder what I was doing in a car with Victor. No, they won’t wonder. They will  _ know.

To Yuuri’s relief, it turned out that Victor could drive. He merely spent the first 15 terrifying minutes of the ride trying to remember how to do it. It wasn’t a fun ride even after that. Victor had no idea where he was going and kept making wrong turns everywhere and twice nearly drove into a one-way street.

Yuuri re-evaluated his earlier statement: Victor couldn’t drive. At all. He probably didn’t even have a driver’s license. Maybe in his twisted mind he thought it was romantic. Yuuri thought it was mad and frightening, and never wanted to do it ever again.

After an hour of this questionable fun he pulled over into a deserted street and parked the car (or thought he did, but really he just stopped in the middle of the road) and turned around to face Yuuri.

_ Oh God, he probably wants me to kiss him now, or something. _

“I’m awful at this, aren’t I?” Victor asked. He chuckled at the expression on Yuuri’s face. “You don’t have to spare me, be honest.”

“You are,” Yuuri admitted. “You don’t have a driver’s license, do you?”

“I do actually. Haven’t driven in a decade,” he said with a hint of a pride in his voice. “So… er…”

Yuuri waited.

“Do you think you could drive us back home?”

Yuuri burst out laughing. Victor’s face split into a smile at that.

They switched seats and Yuuri found out that, just as he had expected, Victor was a true backseat driver. He kept insisting he knew exactly which was the right way to get home and that Yuuri kept making the wrong turn at nearly every intersection. Yuuri didn’t argue. He just did things his own way, too fed up to deal with any nonsense.

_ We can either take 3 hours to get home, or I pretend I’ve gone deaf and we get there in thirty minutes. _

Thirty-five minutes later he parked the car in Victor’s garage and waited to be told off.

Victor embraced him and rewarded him with a kiss.

“Let’s do something else,” Victor whispered into his ear.

Yuuri blushed. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Do you have any ideas?”

_ I really need to learn how to answer that question, _ Yuuri thought and realized he’d resigned himself to this mad affair. _Honestly, I don’t need anything special. I’m perfectly happy spending an evening playing with Makkachin._

For a mad moment he considered saying so aloud.

“No, I don’t,” he said.

“Do you have a favourite dessert place?” Victor released him and sat back in his seat, “Or any other favourite place?”

“Not really…” Yuuri said and added in a quieter tone of voice, “You wouldn’t like it anyway.”

“I will try my hardest to like it,” Victor promised.

“It’s not fashionable and the people who visit it aren’t rich.”

“I have to admit that is a very poor sales pitch so far.” He frowned thoughtfully. “How about this for a sales pitch: I’ve definitely never been there before or in a place like it?”

Yuuri watched Victor’s face spread into an look of encouragement. _How bad can it be? I doubt it will be worse than the drive._ He crossed his arms over his chest. “As long as I don’t have to drive.”

Victor laughed. “Don’t worry about that, I’ll get someone else to take us there.”

 

It definitely wasn’t fashionable. It looked more like a family-owned place from a movie, complete with plastic chairs and tables. They sat at one such table, drinking hot chocolate, it was called something else but was really just hot chocolate. There were Christmas lights arranged haphazardly along the wall and Christmas music blasted from the speakers. There was a small Christmas tree on the counter. They’d been served the Christmas special from the Christmas menu. It was Christmas all the way here.

Victor kept his eyes on Yuuri. This way he didn’t have to see the three women with their makeup done wrong and the lady next to them having a bad hair day, who kept distracting him from the main reason he was there. He sat facing the door, and each time a new person came in, his eyes flickered briefly to it.

Something about Yuuri suggested he was about to make a run for it.

_ How do I make you want to stay? _ Victor wondered. _I never thought that impressing someone would be this hard!_

Yuuri had been tense the whole night. Victor wondered if this was because he was embarrassed. It hadn’t occurred to him until he undressed Yuuri that this might have been the boy’s first time and he wondered the whole night if there was something he was supposed to have done differently.

When the morning came it was his turn to be embarrassed: he’d forgotten what it was like to let someone else see him dishevelled. He had no choice but to come up with an excuse to send Yuuri off so he could make himself presentable. And then, of course, he had to extend the courtesy to Yuuri himself.

He felt the blood rush to his face as he remembered walking in on Yuuri in the Wardrobe and inviting him for the car ride. For some reason seeing Yuuri naked in the Elias-Clarke building was different to seeing him naked in his apartment. He puzzled over this.

Yuuri’s eyes were on the table and again his mind was elsewhere. _What do you think about, Yuuri? What do you want?_

And then a woman walked in and caught his eye. He stared at her for a full twenty seconds before sliding his chair back and getting up. The newcomer barely made two steps in the direction of the counter when he came up to her.

“I don’t make a habit of talking to strangers,” he told her, “but I feel the need to tell you that yellow really isn’t your colour.”

She stared at him in surprise.

“Red is, ruby red in particular. Now, of course, mustard yellow is very popular right now, but it doesn’t flatter your skin tone or the colour of your hair.”

She continued to stare as her mouth dropped open.

He went on, unable to stop. “The cut of dress should be…” He paused, took her in one more time and decided that terminology might not be very useful at this point. He pulled a notepad out of his inside pocket and sketched the style, “something like this.” He handed it to her. “A flared skirt and –”

“Victor Nikiforov…” she whispered.

“Yes?”

Yuuri appeared at his side. “We should go,” he suggested gently.

Victor followed him out onto the street. It started to snow.

“I didn’t think you’d give fashion advice to…” Yuuri paused, uncertain of the next word.

“Strangers?” He watched Yuuri struggle to correct him. “Poor people?”

Yuuri was suddenly very embarrassed by this suggestion. “I…I didn’t…”

“Fashion doesn’t care about the size of your wallet,” he told him.

Yuuri stopped in the middle of the street and stared at him. There were snowflakes on his shoulders and in his hair. Victor felt inspiration flow through him once more. He could do anything. A part of his mind set off to design a formal gown that would make Seung-Gil’s special piece for Paris Fashion Week look like casual street wear.

“Where do you want to go next?” Yuuri asked, oblivious to what was going on in Victor’s mind.

“I leave the choice entirely up to you,” he said and looked around for his car.

Yuuri took his hand. “Let’s walk.”

For a moment surprise appeared on Victor’s face and then vanished to be replaced by a smile. “I will follow you wherever you like,” he whispered into Yuuri’s ear.

Yuuri blushed and picked a direction for them to walk in.

The snow fell harder. They weren’t dressed for sub-zero temperatures. Yuuri’s shoes slipped on the frozen sidewalk and Victor kept having to catch him before he fell on his face.

“Lean on my arm,” he said and Yuuri clung on with both hands.

They went down a couple more blocks. Yuuri stopped when something caught his eye and Victor turned around to see a big Christmas tree standing in the square, decorated so that there was barely a free spot amid the branches. There was a huge crowd of people around it, all trying to snap a photo of each other in front of it.

“Do you want to…” Victor began, but couldn’t continue.

Yuuri’s eyes were glowing. Perhaps they were merely reflecting the lights on the tree, but Victor was very certain that they were emitting a light all of their own. His nose and cheeks were rosy from the cold. There were more snowflakes in his hair now.

_ He’s beautiful, _ Victor thought. _He’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen._

He leaned over to catch another kiss. He hadn’t intended it to be a long one, but Yuuri caught him and wouldn’t let him go. He felt the boy’s hands on his back and only had one wish in that moment.

_ I want someone to take our picture. _

Yuuri’s feet slipped from under him the moment the thought crystallized in Victor’s mind and they landed in a heap on the ground.

“Ah! I’m sorry!” Yuuri jumped to his feet right away and held out his hands for Victor.

The editor of _Runway_ stared up at his assistant with a lost look on his face. Very briefly, so briefly there was only time to draw breath, he looked vulnerable.

Then the charming smile was back and Victor rose to his feet with Yuuri’s help.

Around them the snow fell harder and in bigger clumps.

 

The big advantage movies will always have over the printed word are the visual effects. Sometimes all it takes is a simple scene transition.

Scene one: Victor and Yuuri on the ground in a heap and then fade and scene two: Victor and Yuuri on a bed (probably also in a heap) and with the minimum amount of effort. And the audience misses out on the ride home, the dinner in the restaurant (once again in the three figures) and the return to Victor’s apartment, complete with Yuuri throwing a sideways glance at the couch and wishing he’d asked for a simple pizza dinner with some awful movie.

But now, once again, they were in Victor’s bedroom. Yuuri had his arms wrapped around Victor’s neck and Victor had his lips on Yuuri’s neck.

“This is much better,” Victor had said about the stand-in for Yuuri’s underwear and he’d let Yuuri keep it on.

_ Great! The one thing I actually wish he would pull off, he doesn’t! _

He closed his eyes as Victor’s hands roamed again.

“Yuuri,” he whispered into the young man’s ear. “My dear Yuuri.”

_ I wonder if we’ll ever have normal dates. _

Victor’s lips moved on to Yuuri’s chest.

He thought about their dinner and how Victor insisted on finding out what the most expensive thing on the menu was and then ordering two to try it. Yuuri didn’t have the heart to tell him he didn’t like it.

Victor’s fingers fiddled with the annoying piece of underwear.

“Just take it off already!” Yuuri exclaimed and his eyes snapped open as he realized he’d shouted the words aloud.

“Impatient, aren’t we?” Victor asked with a smile.

“I… uh…” _Oh, what the hell!_ “Yes!”

He waited for Victor to slide his hands over his thighs, but Victor had other ideas: his mouth was at Yuuri’s waist and Yuuri exclaimed in surprise as he felt the editor’s teeth brush against his skin.

What on Earth was he going to do now?

But before Yuuri could make any sound at all Victor was pulling his underwear off with his teeth and a very pleased look on his face, and Yuuri couldn’t help thinking that the shape and material of the underwear he usually wore was less suited for this than that which Victor was currently pulling off him.

Victor took it out of his mouth and said, “When we designed this one – Chris and I – we had exactly this use in mind.” He saw the look on Yuuri’s face and said, “Oh Chris and I started out doing a lingerie line, which we later sold off. You didn’t know that, did you? They had to change the name, but why do you think it’s called _Victoria’s_ Secret? Of course, we meant it as a men’s line initially.” Victor sat on the bed, talking as if he forgot he was completely naked. “I imagine Chris still has some of the old stuff lying around.” He leaned over Yuuri and corrected himself, “I _hope_ Chris still has some of the old stuff lying around.”

Fifteen minutes later Yuuri was gasping for breath, all lingerie items forgotten. His mind was blissfully blank, one sensation overwhelming everything else.

“It’s Monday tomorrow,” Victor whispered.

_ Oh wonderful, _ Yuuri thought. _Why do you have to remind me?_

He felt Victor slide his hands up his sides. “We’ll need to prepare for the Christmas Party,” Victor went on.

_ Yeah, sure, whatever. _ “Yes,” he said, feeling like some sort of response was required. It came out as a gasp with more enthusiasm than he’d intended, but Victor didn’t seem to notice.

“And I’ll need everyone to…”

_ Oh my God, he’s not serious, is he? He is! He really is! How can he talk about work at a time like this? How do I stop him? _

Victor went on, listing Yuuri’s errands for the following day, apparently forgetting that they were busy doing something else. His body and mind seemed to run independently from each other and, had Yuuri’s mind been capable of the same feat, he would’ve probably wondered how this was possible.

“That’s all,” Victor whispered, his hands sliding around to Yuuri’s chest.

Yuuri had to fight down every single urge in his body to not flinch at that simple phrase. If it did make him sweat more, then it barely made a difference: he was already all wet. “I… uh… I didn’t get any of that,” Yuuri admitted.

Victor chuckled. “I’ll make you a list.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how many of you read the other fic I'm writing at the same time as this one (Bad Apple), but I can't help thinking how funny it would be if the Victors (or Yuuris) swapped places between the two fics. Maybe I just want confident Yuuri to slap some sense into this version of Victor (who knows?).  
> Edit: I wrote this meeting. You can read it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11248713).


	13. Lilac

When Yuuri came into the office on Monday morning it wasn’t even 7:30 am and yet, despite this early hour, he’d already run several errands for Victor, going straight from his apartment, without even stopping at his own place. Victor was locked up in his office with someone, the quiet murmur of conversation just audible through the door, but Yuuri’s attention was drawn by something else.

There was a bouquet of lilacs on his desk. He stopped in front of it, taking in the strong scent and breaking out into a smile.

“Admire them,” Yuri said behind him.

Yuuri turned around, unsure if he was being sarcastic or not.

“I’m serious – admire them. I just spent a whole hour trying to get them.”

The bouquet was in a big vase that couldn’t have been cheap either, but Yuuri couldn’t tear his eyes away from the flowers themselves. He put his hands around the bouquet and took in the smell with his eyes closed. The memory of his mother washed over him.

“I don’t know what you did that made him send me halfway across the city after it and I don’t _want_ to know,” Yuri said. “So let’s agree on one thing: you will _never_ tell me any details _ever_. I really, _really_ don’t care what you do.”

“I like them. They’re my favourite,” Yuuri said, the first assistant’s words not registering at all. “My mother planted a bush in front of our house a long time ago and –”

“You weren’t listening to anything I said, were you?” Yuri asked, rolling his eyes.

“Yuuri!” Victor called from inside his office.

They stared at each other, uncertain for the first time, which of them he meant.

“Come with me,” Yuri ordered just loud enough for Yuuri to hear.

They entered the office together and Victor beamed at the designer in the room. “Do you see how convenient it is to have two assistants with the same name? No one seems to understand, for some reason.”

Seung-Gil merely scowled.

The two Yuris exchanged a look.

“Yuuri, write down the date and time right now. Seung-Gil is now banned from using cobalt blue. Bye, Seung-Gil!”

_ Why? Is there some kind of sin that designers commit the punishment for which is being banned from using specific colours? _

Victor watched Seung-Gil walk out of the office. “He swore he’d never use it again. I told him I don’t believe it. Now we can see how long he lasts.” He paused and the smile on his face was wider. “What did you think of the flowers, Yuuri?”

Yuuri avoided making eye contact with the other Yuri. Was he supposed to know that the first assistant had brought them in and not Victor? “I like them,” he said. “Lilacs are my favourite.”

“Excellent! Yuri will get you one every day. That’s all.”

They left the office and Yuri closed the door behind them.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri whispered. “You really don’t have to –”

“He’ll check,” Yuri muttered miserably and flopped into his chair with a sigh.

Yuuri followed him to his desk. “Then get a courier to bring it in,” he suggested. “Arrange regular delivery with a store.” He paused and, _oh what the heck_ , “I can do it.”

“He’ll know. He said he wants me to deliver it. In person. Besides, they won’t do delivery before 8, I checked, and he wants them here before 8.”

Yuuri sighed. “It doesn’t matter, really.”

“Why don’t you tell _him_ that?”

Yuuri tried to imagine how he would do that and gave up. _I need to think of something or Yuri will kill me for this, but what can I possibly do?_ Several options occurred to him, but he wasn’t convinced any of them would work.

“Alright, I will arrange for delivery,” Yuri conceded at last and got a surprised look from Yuuri. “But your job is to make sure that Victor doesn’t get here before 8 am.”

Yuuri felt the blood rush to his face as he realized just what Yuri meant. “Right.”

The first assistant tapped his pen on the desk and then he looked Yuuri straight in the eye. “I know this is a stupid question, but I’m going to ask it anyway: are you sure about this?”

He didn’t need to explain what he meant by “this”: Yuuri understood him perfectly. He turned away and said nothing.

The pen tapped against the desk a couple more times. “Listen…” Yuri paused and went on, “if you ever need help – tell me.”

Yuuri gave him a look of surprise.

“I’m not saying _I_ will help, but I can find someone else who might.” He glared, as if Yuuri had suggested that he would do something dirty. “The last thing I want is a big scandal with all our names in the papers, so let’s try to avoid that.”

 

Since it was the day before the Christmas party, it was time for Victor to review everyone’s outfits. Representatives of other magazines were invited and he wanted to personally make sure that no one under his employment would embarrass him. The clothes were usually selected a month or two in advance, so it was a mystery to Yuuri why the review happened the day before. Presumably everyone had a second or third option of what to wear. There was also a rumour that one year Victor disliked someone’s choice so much he fired that person on the spot.

All the rumours about the editor of _Fantastic Man_ coming were forgotten as everyone panicked and changed their minds last minute.

Victor booked a special conference room where he stood and watched people come in. Yuuri was at his side, writing down the comments to follow up with their recipients later. Once again, the first assistant was left manning the desk.

Victor spared no one and Yuuri could barely keep up with the stream of commentary from him. Three people had to change more than twice.

When the last person left the editor turned to look at his assistant. “Chris already got approval from me for your clothes,” he told Yuuri and headed for the elevator.

Yuuri rushed after him. He could see that Victor was livid. It looked like Victor had higher expectations for his staff and now he was very disappointed that they’d let him down.

They arrived at the elevator together and Yuuri found himself in an awkward situation. There was no way to avoid it. He probably should’ve come up with some sort of excuse or at least walked a lot slower, but as soon as he realized he was about to get into the elevator with Victor, where they’d be alone, his mind treacherously shut down.

He let Victor enter first before following closely behind him and pushing the button for the top floor.

They stood in silence. Yuuri bit his lip and clenched his hands, afraid he might do something foolish again. _The elevator can stop any moment_ , he reminded himself, _on any floor._ But it didn’t and just kept climbing.

Yuuri eyed the corner of the elevator as discreetly as he could. Sure enough, there was a camera there.

At that moment his memory rebelled and threw him a vision from the previous night: Victor with Yuuri’s underwear between his teeth and a playful smile on his face.

Yuuri fixed his eyes on the bottom corner of the elevator and tried to think about it and not at all about the smile on Victor’s face or the feel of – _Oh God, no! What a wonderful corner! Yes, definitely. Has probably seen lots of expensive shoes._

Now his mind treacherously reminded him of the sight of Victor at his feet, Yuuri’s left leg resting on his shoulder as he pulled off his right shoe and stared up into his face.

_ Ding! _ The elevator broke into Yuuri’s thoughts and he breathed out a sigh of relief as he stepped out.

“Yuuri! Did you go through my mail yet?”

“Will do, right away, Victor.”

He nodded. “It’s taking up too much space.”

Every so often when their mad schedules allowed it, the two assistants would go through Victor’s mail, or – to be more specific – mail sent to _Runway_ addressed to Victor Nikiforov. People seemed to think that this way there was a higher chance of him reading it and didn’t know that only the assistants read them (and even then sometimes they didn’t and chucked them straight into the trash bin). The mail was delivered by someone who seemed to hate them all and just dumped it in a heap in a corner of the office. Sometimes Yuuri felt like the heap grew all on its own.

Yuuri examined the first letter he retrieved from the pile. It was written in pen, covered in white-out and full of mistakes.

_ Dear Mr. Victor Nikiforov, _

_ You are the most stylish man ever! You’re my idol! I would give anything to work for you! My name is Lutz and I’m in 9th grade. My mom tells me I shouldn’t waste all my allowance on magazines, but  _ Runway _is just full of so many pretty people. When I finish school –_

Yuuri couldn’t read the rest because there were tears in his eyes. He wished he could write back and say, _Don’t do it. It’s not worth it. Most of the people here are insane and almost all of them have some kind of eating disorder. You will spend the rest of your life thinking you’re fat and ugly, when in reality you are neither and the boss…_

He tossed the letter into his trash bin and went to get the next batch. By the purest of coincidences Yuri went to the pile at exactly the same time.

“He acts like nothing happened,” Yuuri confided in him. “I don’t understand how he can do that.”

Yuri eyed him with disgust. “And what exactly did you expect? A lovey-dovey welcome each time you walk into the office? _Runway_ needs to keep going whether its editor is seeing someone or not. We keep going. He wouldn’t let us stop if we’d cut one of our fingers off - or even all of them - so why should it be any different for him?”

Yuuri opened his mouth to explain what he’d meant and waved his hand dismissively instead. “Never mind.”

“No. Let’s get this clear,” Yuri poked him in the chest (which might’ve been an intimidating gesture, if he’d been taller, but he wasn’t). “I will not let you run around, destroying _Runway_ , got that? And Victor _is Runway_. If you have any plans to mess with that then you better march into his office right now and tell him it’s over!”

Yuuri stared at him in amazement. He thought he had an ally in Yuri, maybe a grudging ally, but an ally nonetheless. Now he realized he was wrong. “I’m not…”

“The press will just love to get their teeth in this, so while you’re here you act like a normal assistant. If you want to,” he waved his arm in the air, “do whatever when with him in private, then that’s your problem. It has nothing to do with this!”

He stormed off back to his desk, but stopped right before sitting down to turn around and glare back at Yuuri. “Do you understand?”

Yuuri nodded.

“Good.”

Was that how Victor thought about it? Yuuri dropped into his seat with another stack of letters. He didn’t bother reading any more of the fanmail this time and just threw it out right away.

_ I should just tell him this is wrong and end it before it gets too serious. _ He finished answering the last one and logged into his email. _I’m stupid. There’s no way this can end well._

 

Victor stood in his office, staring outside. It was snowing again, but this snow seemed different from the one that fell the previous day. He thought of Yuuri with snowflakes in his hair and returned to his desk. There was a stack of papers on it already, half of them covered in sketches. He pulled out a blank one.

Yuuri was an enigma to him. He thought that Yuuri would’ve demanded something after their first night, or, failing that, definitely after their second night together, but Yuuri said nothing. _What do you want, Yuuri? You never ask for anything. Anyone else would have demanded a raise, at least, by now._ Was Yuuri really that innocent or was he merely biding his time? _What are you waiting for, Yuuri?_

Alone he’d risen to the top of the fashion world and all the while people tried to use him. Once or twice he fell for it, realizing too late what they’d really wanted, and then he became suspicious and untrusting. If they wanted something, he made sure to get something in return and, if it wasn’t for him, then at least he’d made sure that _Runway_ benefitted from it. Was Yuuri biding his time until it was too late for Victor to back away?

Was it too late already?

He thought about his attempts to impress Yuuri with the ice cream and the dinners and how Yuuri reacted as if they’d offended him in some way.

It just made no sense.

Victor crumpled the latest sketch and tossed it into the garbage.

“Yuuri!” he called.

His assistant rushed in, his face slightly flushed. His eyes were red and Victor found himself getting up and walking up to him, before he was even aware he’d decided to do it.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“N-no. Nothing,” Yuuri stepped back and for a moment Victor couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had built an invisible wall between them.

_ Maybe it’s allergies. He’s so sensitive to everything. _

“Did you sort out my mail?”

“Yes, Victor.”

He stood still, wondering what more he could say. Yuuri stood less than a meter away, staring down at his feet.

Victor remembered catching him by surprise when Yuuri sat down to pull his shoes off. He looked both embarrassed and pleased when Victor raised his foot as if he really was interested in his shoes. Unlacing them had been more fun than he’d anticipated.

He imagined Yuuri in a long gown and then unlacing it.

He circled his assistant. Yuuri was visibly withdrawing within himself.

“Yakov invited me to lunch,” Victor said at last, “so you don’t need to order any food for me.” _I’d much rather spend it with you, even if that meant going hungry._

Yuuri remained silent.

“Did you get my dry cleaning?”

“It will be ready this evening.”

Victor nodded. That would give Yuuri a reason to come to him. He felt like he’d made some progress the previous night. Yuuri was certainly not as tense the second time around. He wondered what Chris gave him to wear this time.

 

Yuuri went to pick up Victor’s dry cleaning, but instead of heading to his apartment, he went home. He couldn’t deal with this alone. He had to tell someone.

By a stroke of luck, Phichit was home. He sat on the sofa with a preoccupied look on his face.

Yuuri hesitated. _He’s already got something on his mind. I can’t just heap all of my troubles on him._

“Yuuri! There you are!” Phichit exclaimed, coming out of his reverie and noticing his friend for the first time. “I was starting to wonder if I should call you. I haven’t seen you all weekend! Where have you been? Don’t tell me your boss worked you all through it!”

Yuuri blushed faintly at the accidental euphemism. “No, I…” He took a deep breath. “Can we sit down? I need to talk to you about something serious.”

Phichit nodded at the spot beside him and watched Yuuri sit down with a curious expression on his face.

“I did a terrible thing,” Yuuri began.

“Did you spit in Victor’s drink, or something?”

Yuuri stared at Phichit in surprise.

“What? _I_ would’ve done that by now,” Phichit smiled, as if trying to lighten the mood of their conversation, but it didn’t help.

“I, uh…” Well, he’d made it this far. He took another deep breath and closed his eyes. “I slept with Victor Nikiforov. Twice.”

Somehow saying it made it real. The shock of it struck him as well. He listened to his own voice admit to doing something he hadn’t thought possible two months ago.

Yuuri realized that several minutes had passed and Phichit remained oddly silent. He opened his eyes and looked at Phichit, wanting to see what his friend made of this.

There was an odd expression on Phichit’s face that Yuuri couldn’t make sense of.

“Oh, Yuuri,” Phichit said at last. He gave a big sigh.

“What?”

Phichit pulled Yuuri into a hug. “I had a bad feeling about this job, but if I’d have known it would get this far, I’d have talked you out of it.”

“Really, Phichit, you’re making it sound more serious than it is!” Yuuri found himself protesting. All this time he kept thinking how much trouble he was in, but now that someone else was saying it he refused to admit it.

“Am I, Yuuri? You’re sleeping with your boss! And not just any boss: Victor Nikiforov!”

Yuuri released him and said nothing.

“There’s something you need to know, but…” He hesitated, looking into Yuuri’s face. “…it’s not going to be pleasant.”

Yuuri laughed bitterly. “I’ve been through hell these last couple of weeks, Phichit, do you think there’s any way it can be even worse?”

“It can always be worse,” Phichit whispered.

Yuuri’s phone rang.

Phichit caught his hand before Yuuri could reach for it. “Forget that you’re working as an assistant to an editor, Yuuri, and remember that you’re a journalist.”

Yuuri pulled out his phone and accepted the call, giving Phichit a puzzled look.

_ What on Earth does that mean? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you ever wanted someone to give editor Victor a hard time, I wrote a short meeting between him and sarcastic bad boy Yuuri (from my other fic [Bad Apple](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10619574/chapters/23487078)). You can read it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11248713/chapters/25143588). Alternatively, if you want to read about this journalist Yuuri meeting flustered Victor from Bad Apple while being the stripper at Chris's bachelor party, you can read it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11259303). I wrote them only for fun, I promise.


	14. Louis XIV

Yuuri woke up as Victor moved away from him. He panicked as his eye fell on the clock by the bed. It was only 6:30 and he had to do something. Victor pulled on his bathrobe and was about to go take a shower when Yuuri had an idea.

“Breakfast in bed!” Yuuri exclaimed, sitting up.

“What?”

“I want to serve you breakfast in bed.” Why did he have to blush now? Why?

“I’ve never had breakfast in bed before,” Victor admitted, sitting back down.

“I thought expensive hotels would have it,” Yuuri said, shifting closer to him.

“It seems messy,” Victor said. He raised his hands and pulled them through Yuuri’s hair. “Breakfast should be at a table.”

“No, no, this is much better, you’ll see,” Yuuri insisted. He closed his eyes as Victor leaned in for a kiss.

Victor released him. Yuuri rose to his feet and headed for the bathroom. He paused in the doorway and turned around to smile at Victor.

Yuuri took a quick shower, put on a pair of underwear and went to the kitchen. The fridge was completely empty.

He sighed. There was nothing for it: he would have to get dressed and go out to find something.

Getting dressed this time around posed more of a challenge, since it also included a hunt for his clothes. He’d found his underwear on the floor of the bedroom, but the rest of his clothes were elsewhere.

It seemed that the previous night they’d found a new use for furniture with Victor. There wasn’t a single chair or table in the living room that didn’t have some article of clothing on it. There was even a sock hanging from the chandelier and Yuuri wondered how it got there. But that, of course, was another rule of the universe: after a sufficiently wild night, there will always be an article of clothing hanging from a chandelier the next morning.

And they’d had a _very_ wild night.

After Yuuri’s conversation with Phichit, which got cut off by Victor calling to find out where he was and when he was coming, Yuuri got three more phone calls from the editor. The first – as he asked Phichit to clarify what he’d meant, the second – as he was walking out the door with Phichit’s promise to get something by email in the morning, and the third – as he arrived on Fifth Avenue and paid the taxi driver.

All worries about Phichit’s strange words went out the window as soon as he stepped through the door and it became obvious that the only thing Victor had to say about Yuuri’s clothes this time was how disappointing it was that he couldn’t get them out of his way faster.

Yuuri blushed at the memory of Victor’s mouth travelling down, following his fingers as they unbuttoned his shirt as he picked up said shirt from the back of a chair. He remembered backing away against the chair before his shirt was discarded onto it.

Once dressed he returned to the bedroom. “Wait for me. I’ll be back soon,” he promised.

Victor gave him a surprised look.

_Don’t argue, please,_ Yuuri begged mentally as he waited for some kind of confirmation.

Victor nodded. “I’ll wait.” He caught Yuuri’s hand and squeezed it.

Yuuri rushed downstairs, buttoning up his coat as he ran. He called Victor’s driver as soon as Google maps told him how far it was to the nearest grocery store.

“Good morning!” the driver greeted him as he drove up to pick up Yuuri.

“Good morning,” Yuuri responded absentmindedly.

“Boss not coming this time?”

Yuuri froze in the act of getting into the car. He got so used to going around in a car driven by someone else, he completely forgot that there was a driver, a _witness_ to everything that went on. He’d seen them go together. They’d kept themselves under control in the car, but it didn’t take a detective to see what was happening. After all, even taking into consideration the strange errands Yuuri had had to run for his job, if two people went home together in the evening several times the mind tended to draw certain conclusions, especially when the one who didn’t live there came out of that house in the morning.

“I need to buy some food for breakfast,” he said, climbing into the back seat. _Let him think what he likes._

The driver nodded. “I know a good place nearby.”

“Thank you.”

They managed to make the whole trip in 20 minutes, including the ten minutes Yuuri spent running through the store, getting what he needed and startling several old ladies.

When Yuuri returned Victor was still sitting on the bed with a slightly confused look on his face. Wanting no interruptions, Yuuri confiscated his phone and headed for the kitchen to cook.

He served Victor an omelette with mushrooms, cheese and peppers 15 minutes later. He even managed to find a tray.

Victor greeted him with excitement. “I can’t remember the last time I ate breakfast at home!”

And Yuuri forgot this was his editor, the man who’d made his life literal hell for the past few months. He sat down on the bed beside him and watched him eat.

Victor picked up a piece of the omelette with his fork and fed it to Yuuri who was caught off guard by this gesture. Seeing Yuuri’s reaction, Victor shifted closer and fed him more.

When breakfast was over Yuuri went off to the kitchen to do the dishes.

Victor called him soon after and Yuuri followed the sound of his voice into a walk-in closet.

“I don’t think we need to rely on Chris today,” he said, presenting Yuuri with a suit.

“B-but…” Yuuri stammered. _But everything you wear is custom tailored to fit you!_

“Consider it your Christmas present,” Victor said and Yuuri realized it was brand new and remembered too late that Victor wasn’t the sort of person to give someone else their old clothes to be worn.

“Th-thank you!” He started to unbutton his jacket, not even stopping to consider how odd it was that he’d gotten used to people picking out his clothes.

“Let me,” Victor said. “I had this Westwood suit delivered from England,” he told Yuuri and went on at length about the style, the colour and fabric, as if delivering a lecture on the history of fashion.

They stood in a forest of clothing, their owner still in his bathrobe, as Victor undressed and then dressed Yuuri. Despite the fact that Victor carried it all out calmly as if it was perfectly natural that the editor of a fashion magazine would change his assistant’s clothes, to Yuuri it felt incredibly intimate. He closed his eyes, listening to the sound of Victor’s voice, but in no state to understand a single word.

_Please don’t stop, because if you do, I’m afraid that you’ll hear just how loud my heart is beating right now._

Victor finished and stepped back. Yuuri opened his eyes.

“You’re still missing something…” Victor said quietly and then smiled as it came to him. “Stay here.” He left and Yuuri remained still, suddenly afraid to even breathe.

An eternity passed and Victor returned with something folded in his hand. He tucked it into the breast pocket of Yuuri’s jacket.

It was Victor’s own signature handkerchief.

“Now it’s perfect,” Victor said and kissed Yuuri. “Go ahead,” he whispered after a while, breaking the kiss, but his face still dangerously close. “Go on ahead and I’ll see you there.” He slid his fingers over Yuuri’s cheek.

For several minutes neither of them moved.

Something rang in the pocket of Yuuri’s coat.

“Ah! Your phone,” Yuuri remembered, pulling it out.

Victor smiled, took it and declined the call without even checking who the caller was. One of his hands was still on Yuuri’s face.

_Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe a few seconds of happiness are worth all the suffering that will come afterwards._

He willed himself to walk out and then take the elevator downstairs to the street where he caught a taxi. He only had half a day of work and the Christmas party in the evening. Everyone would be there at the party, so everyone would be there at work as well.

_Now I’m wearing his mark. Everyone will see and everyone will know._ Yuuri put his hand to the handkerchief and felt tears rise to his eyes. _Not now, oh God, please not now._

He tried to focus on the thought that for the first time they had a normal night together. A night that didn’t include lectures on clothes or conversations about work, but only Victor gasping Yuuri’s name.

 

_“Yuuri, please…” Victor moaned, “please, don’t stop.”_

_What could he say to that when it didn’t sound like Victor’s usual tone at all? Had anyone ever heard the editor speak that way before?_

_He could feel his own heart beat faster._

I need to say something, _he thought._

_“Let me take care of you,” he whispered._

_Victor chuckled. “Yes, I would like that.”_

 

Yuuri’s phone made a noise and he pulled it out of his pocket.

_Check your email,_ Phichit wrote.

His heart fell. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe he could ignore it and just go on, blind to everything around him, pretending everything was alright. He could still do that couldn’t he? Now that things were starting to work out at last.

But he had to know. He couldn’t go on not knowing, after a comment like Phichit’s. He would go on digging and digging until he found all the information he could. After all, that was why he went into journalism in the first place.

He opened his email.

 

“Are you okay, sir?” the taxi driver asked.

Yuuri raised his eyes from his phone and the photo of Victor Nikiforov smiling on the cover of _Fantastic Man_. He stood half turned to the camera, one hand on his hip and the other – holding a long cane. He was in a thick velvet mantle, but instead of Bourbon lilies Yuuri would have expected it bore his signature pattern, which, coincidentally enough, also consisted of gold shapes on a blue background. In short, he looked like a modern recreation of a famous painting of Louis XIV.

“Only we’ve arrived and you’ve been sitting quietly in the back for five whole minutes.”

“Right. Sorry.”

_I’m sorry I ever came here. I’m sorry I ever heard about_ Runway.

He paid the taxi driver and went inside the Elias-Clarke building, forgetting about the handkerchief tucked into his breast pocket. He paid no attention to the people around him or that some of them turned and stared as he walked by. He was in a world of agony.

How could he have been so stupid? So stupid and so _naïve_? It was a classic scenario! Anyone with an ounce of sense would have foreseen this! Any number of published books existed as a warning against exactly this sort of thing!

He felt as if that morning he’d been floating among the clouds only to be hauled down to the ground. It hurt. It really, really hurt.

He put one hand next to his heart and his fingers brushed against the handkerchief.

Yuuri stared down at it in horror. He wanted to burn the damn thing.

And then the tears came, hot and embarrassed tears of someone who was attacked for no good reason, offended for doing nothing wrong.

The elevator deposited him on the top floor with a ding and Yuuri stormed into the office suite. He armed himself with anger to fight the tears down.

Yuri Plisetsky was the only one there.

“You think I’m stupid, naïve and innocent?” Yuuri exclaimed, turning away to not see the flowers on his desk. “I might not be as experienced as all of you, but do you really think I’ve never read a single book in my life?”

Yuri looked up from his screen in surprise. “What on Earth are you going on about?”

“Do you know how many love affairs Victor has had in his life since he became the editor of _Runway_?” he demanded, looking into the face of the first assistant and half-wondering if he knew the answer to the question. I looked it up. 15!” _It’s as if he tires of them quickly. Tires of_ us _quickly._

“Where did you get that number from?” Yuri asked with a hint of suspicion in his voice.

“ _Fantastic Man_. And before you start, he told them so himself. Sure, he always avoids the question, but then they’d ask him about a rumour going around and he would be forced to confirm it. And any minute now my name will be on that list.” He sighed, seeing that Yuri still wasn’t convinced. “And I double-checked. What sort of a journalist would I be if I trusted one source?”

“You see this?” He pointed at the handkerchief. “Does this not scream ‘mine’ to you?”

“Er… what?”

“Or is it supposed to be some sort of medal for good behaviour?”

“Why are you telling me this? Why don’t you go straight to him to complain?” Yuri asked and for a moment Yuuri thought he looked as distressed by this as he was.

Yuuri laughed bitterly. “When was the last time you complained to him about anything? When he wanted the whole issue redone in three days, you barely said a word against it! Several people argued with him, but in the end everyone else did exactly what he wanted. You got so used to – so _conditioned_ to – catering to his every whim, you don’t even have the guts to stand up to him and tell him.” There was a lump in his throat and he couldn’t continue.

His eyes were focused on his shoes, but he could still feel Yuri’s stare.

“That’s what … That’s what you’ve done to me,” Yuuri said as tears started to roll down his cheeks.

“So now it’s _my_ fault?”

“That night it all started…” Yuuri’s hand was on the handkerchief again. “How do I know if I want any of this, or if I’ve just been catering to his every whim as well?” he half-whispered.

_You really do always anticipate my wishes_. _I guess that makes you the perfect assistant._ Yuuri froze. But he’d wanted this too, hadn’t he? And Victor had asked him for his permission the first time they slept together.

_How can I tell the difference between what he wants and what I want?_

It was quiet in the office for several minutes. Outside cars sped by and life went on. Someone in the hall told a funny story to someone else and they both laughed loudly. The sound knocked Yuuri out of his reverie.

He pulled out his phone and stared at the cover with Victor as Louis XIV. The caption read “the new King of _Runway_.” Maybe the person who put it together thought it was a funny joke (they couldn’t have known anything about what sort of editor he would be at the time), but it frightened Yuuri to think how well it all lined up.

Louis XIV was in a position of absolute power. Whatever he wanted – he’d get, because no one dared deny him anything and that included women as well as physical objects. He had a court that adored him (or at least acted like it did). He remembered thinking how unfair it was when he’d read about it.

The voices in the hall were louder and Yuuri recognized the tones of the editor of _Runway_. He stepped up to the door to take Victor’s coat when he came in. That way he could also hide his face behind it and the editor wouldn’t see how upset he was.

_I need to think about what to do next. If I could just find some time to sit down and think!_

But Victor was already walking through the door and all of Yuuri’s thoughts centred on him.

As always, Victor radiated power and confidence. He stopped to let Yuuri take his coat and then smiled at his assistant. He threw a look at the bouquet and headed for his office. He didn’t even reward his first assistant with a glance.

Yuuri ran off to fetch Victor’s coffee before he could think about this.

Fifteen minutes later Yuuri was in the coffee shop across the street waiting for his order with his head lowered, fighting back tears. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

“Chin up, here’s your coffee!”

He looked up into the beaming face of a barista.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, the grin vanishing from her face.

“N-nothing.”

“Maybe the coffee will cheer you up.”

“It’s not for me. It’s for my boss.”

The expression on his face must have changed when he said those words, because she gave him a sharp look.

_This is so awkward. I need to go. He’s waiting for me._ Yuuri reached for the coffee, but the barista put her hand in the way.

“Can I hug you?” She asked and pulled her hand back. “You look like you need a hug.”

He stared at her in silence for several seconds and then gave a single quick nod. She walked up to him and put her arms around him.

“What’s your name?” she asked quietly. “I’m Minako.”

“Yuuri,” he answered.

“I see you here every morning,” she went on. “If you ever want to talk, or if you just want another hug, just ask.” She released him and stepped back. “And I’m sure that it will all be alright in the end.”

“It won’t,” Yuuri said miserably.

 

Yuuri had never been to a fancy Christmas party before, but this one had everything he expected to find: a fancy venue (they’d actually let Victor host it in the Metropolitan! Yuuri was shocked when he found out), fashionable decorations (put together by two big name designers, no less), a big Christmas tree with just the right amount of ornaments on it, the cream of society in their absolute best (Yuuri had discovered to his horror that Victor’s outfit that evening was in the five figures and the dry cleaning he’d arranged for it that morning – an outfit Victor had never worn before – was in the three figures), waiters with trays of glasses of some of the best champagne (that he and Yuri had spent a week procuring) and of course the host.

Victor was still missing.

Yuuri stood by a mirror with the first assistant as they both carried out a paranoid last minute check of their clothes.

Yuri held himself with dignity as if he always wore expensive clothing and this was just something he put on at random and didn’t fret over at all for five whole weeks.

Yuuri, meanwhile, felt like someone who put a suit on for the first time. He worried about getting a stain or a tear. He alternated between worrying if he was over or underdressed for an assistant.

And, of course, he wore the mark.

So did, Yuri, but his was smaller and the pattern was slightly faded, while Yuuri’s was bold and – what was more important – had been worn by Victor Nikiforov himself not too long ago. He might as well have been wearing a sign around his neck with the words “I’m sleeping with Victor Nikiforov”.

“Stop fidgeting!” Yuri exclaimed. “Let’s go over everything again. Do you have the list of guests memorized?”

“Yes.” Yuuri doubted it, but what more could he say?

“You and I will stand _behind_ Victor, got that?”

Yuuri nodded.

“You’re not to leave his side until he greets all the guests, so don’t drink anything until then.”

It didn’t surprise Yuuri to learn that Victor preferred to greet all his guests himself. What did, however, was finding out that despite the fact that Victor invited mostly the same people every year he couldn’t be bothered to learn their names.

“And for _God’s sake_ keep him away from the alcohol!” Yuri hissed. “Two years ago he downed half a bottle without anyone noticing. You have _no idea_ how hard it was to cover up the scandal afterwards!”

Yuuri’s eyes widened in surprise. He’d seen Victor drink in a bar before, but he always thought Victor could keep his drinking under control.

“Usually he only stays for half an hour,” Yuri told him, “but just in case he doesn’t, you and I will keep an eye on him the whole time, go it?” He lowered his eyes and mumbled something from which only the name ‘Beka’ could be discerned.

Yuri checked his watch yet again. “Right. He should be here in a few minutes.” He looked like he was going through a mental checklists for several seconds. “Oh yes and – I hope I don’t have to say this – but if you… if he invites you to a dance you _turn him down_ , got that? His feelings won’t be hurt and he’ll be grateful tomorrow morning for that, I’m sure.” He saw the bewildered look on Yuuri’s face and misunderstood it. “Victor Nikiforov _never_ dances with anyone at his Christmas party. Ever. You _do not_ want to be the exception to the rule. Got it?”

Yuuri nodded.

“Good.” Yuri smiled. “You know, if it hadn’t been for your love affair, I would’ve been tempted to call you a perfect second assistant.”

Yuuri tried to smile at this praise. The love affair had been his fault entirely, even if he _had_ been conditioned by Victor.

His heart beat faster in his chest as again his thoughts turned to the previous night. There had been no distractions. Victor hadn’t spoken a word about anything else. His only attention had been for Yuuri and Yuuri wondered if that meant something.

In the heat of the moment he even thought he’d say it, but he’d been too out of breath.

“Oy!” Yuri poked him. “Stop that! Your face is all red. It’s disgusting!”

“S-sorry.”

Yuuri never found out if Yuri had any other pearls of wisdom to impart on him, because he was interrupted by the appearance of the host of the Christmas party.

Victor walked in, framed by the doorway in the instant when Yuuri saw him. He was in formal evening dress and a long deep blue velvet cloak. Yuuri stared, remembering the photo mimicking Louis XIV and the article that accompanied it.

_It is easy to see why a man such as Victor Nikiforov conquers the hearts of many. Not only is he rich, but boasts impeccable taste, making him the most stylish man on the planet. He is blessed with good looks and great manners and, finally, something that no amount of training or plastic surgery can give a person: charm._

Victor approached them and Yuuri felt a blush spread over his cheeks.

“Is everything ready?”

“Yes,” Yuri answered and went through a checklist he’d saved on his phone.

Victor’s eyes were on Yuuri and he didn’t seem to be listening.

Would Victor do something to give them away?

Yuuri’s heart beat faster. Could he prevent it somehow? He was all too aware that there were only three of them and that Victor acted as if Yuri didn’t count.

He panicked. What could he do to keep Victor’s mind off him?

“The guests will start arriving shortly,” Yuri concluded and exchanged a look with Yuuri. “We should go meet them in the lobby.”

Victor stepped up to Yuuri, suddenly really close, far closer than Yuuri was ready for. Yuuri stiffened and backed away.

Victor caught him by the shoulder. Still the calm smile remained on his lips. He adjusted Yuuri’s tie.

“You don’t have a handkerchief,” he said.

“I-I… uh…” _What does he expect? I couldn’t keep it!_

“I have a spare,” Yuri cut in calmly and produced one identical to his.

Victor nodded his approval and released Yuuri. “Follow me.”

It must have been an impressive sight: the editor and his two assistants waiting to greet the guests at _Runway_ ’s Christmas party (the invites all referred to it that way, but, as Yuri had remarked to Yuuri, everyone knew whose party it really was).

The guests arrived in groups: handsome men with beautiful women or men hanging on their arms, or fashionable women with gorgeous men and women at their sides. Each time Victor would cast a sideways glance at one or the other of his assistants, who both stood just behind him, and one of them would lean forward and whisper the guest’s name. Of course, this didn’t apply to anyone from the world of fashion. Victor was on first name terms with most of them, but this didn’t extend to the people who accompanied them.

Too often Yuuri noticed that Victor would look to him, but they’d split the list between him and Yuri, so he didn’t always know the answer. He was getting very anxious now.

Three more groups went by and the anxiety was making it hard to think.

The next guest arrived and Yuuri felt his heart sink. He knew that face. It was on his list, but his mind was a total blank.

“That’s the… um… tip of my tongue,” he stuttered and wished he hadn’t said anything. “The…um…”

“It’s Ambassador Franklin. And that’s the woman that he left his wife for, Rebecca,” Yuri supplied.

Victor nodded and greeted the Ambassador by name.

The assistants exchanged looks. The first assistant dared the second one to put a toe out of line now.

Stéphane arrived and Victor left his assistants in exchange for a pleasant chat with his best friend.

It looked like that was it for the evening. Either the list of people invited had run out, or the rest of the guests just weren’t coming.

“Thank you,” Yuuri said.

“Don’t get excited. Like I said, you’re just barely adequate. Right now, I don’t have the time to go through the hiring nightmare again and then train someone all over from the beginning. So don’t slip up anymore, got it?”

Yuuri saw the frustration on Yuri’s face and had an odd thought. _Maybe if we’d met under other circumstances, we could’ve been friends._ He sighed.

Before he could say anything more, or before Yuri could snap again, another guest arrived. He was alone and wore an impressive red suit embroidered with gold from top to bottom. His name wasn’t on Yuuri’s half of the list, but he knew exactly who that was. He would’ve recognized that face even before he started working for _Runway._ After all, how could he not recognize his best friend?

“Phichit? What is _he_ doing here?” Yuuri exclaimed.

“What? That bastard showed his face after all?” Yuri growled, his hands balling into fists.

Yuuri stared at Plisetsky in surprise. The first assistant gave him an equally puzzled look. “Don’t you know that Victor hates him?”

“He does?”

“Well, _obviously_ ,” Yuri said, as if speaking about the most natural thing in the world. “He considers Phichit to be his biggest rival.”

“Rival?”

“Well, alright, they don’t compete _directly_ with each other, but he watches the sales.”

“Sales?” Yuuri echoed.

“Of his magazine,” Plisetsky explained slowly. “You know, as in – the _Fantastic Man_.”

Yuuri said nothing. Phichit was editor-in-chief of _Fantastic Man_? How long had he been in that position? His face turned red as he remembered all of the stories he’d shared with his friend. _If Victor ever finds out, he will kill me. I think Yuri will kill me too._

And then the full horror of his situation dawned on him. _I’m sleeping with the editor of_ Runway _and the editor of_ Fantastic Man _is my best friend!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point I recommend going back and re-reading from the beginning. I promise it will be worth it.


	15. Phichit Chulanont

When Phichit Chulanont was promoted to editor of _Fantastic Man_ the chairman of the publishing company pulled him aside and said the following:

“Let me be frank with you, Phichit: the main reason the board wanted you as the editor was for your peacemaking abilities. We want an end to the drama between _Fantastic Man_ and _Runway_ and we think you’re the right person for the job.”

Phichit smiled and nodded. “I won’t let you down, Mr. Cialdini.”

His predecessor, Jean-Jacques Leroy, got into a fight with the editor of _Runway_. No one could quite remember how it started (or even who started it), but it led to a big falling out between the two magazines. The feud (the fashion magazine equivalent to two six-year-olds sticking out their tongues at each other on the playground) went on for several years without any sign of stopping in the near future. Victor used all his influence to make life difficult for the people of _Fantastic Man_ , but Jean-Jacques wasn’t well-connected enough to retaliate in the same way, so, naturally, Mr. Cialdini wanted to put a stop to that. Thus when Jean-Jacques went on to do something else the board seized this opportunity to turn things around.

Phichit knew what was required of him, so he took care during interviews. It was just unfortunate that he knew so little about dealing with the press. He did his best to appear confident and in control; they wrote it off as arrogance. He suggested that _Runway_ and _Fantastic Man_ could get along well; they saw it as him issuing a challenge.

So he got tired of it all and sent everyone away. He avoided interviews and public appearances and focused on work, avoiding also his brand new apartment that was just too big and too empty, even if it was in the middle of New York.

And thus, when Yuuri, his childhood friend, called him up and told him he’d finally finished his exams and was moving to New York to look for a job there, Phichit was ready to jump for joy. He told Yuuri he absolutely had to move in with him and wouldn’t accept any argument whatsoever. Yuuri was like a breath of fresh air. He was an idealist and Phichit enjoyed his company all the more for that.

Yet weeks went by and Yuuri couldn’t find anything. Phichit started to worry. He could see it tore his friend apart, but he felt that his own hands were tied. And so when Yuuri admitted to be willing to do anything, when it looked like Yuuri was on the verge of doing something terrible out of desperation, Phichit went against his own principles in not hiring a friend to work under him and opened his mouth to –

To be interrupted by a job offer from _Runway_.

Now he wanted nothing more than to keep Yuuri away. But how could he explain why? How could he send innocent and naïve Yuuri into the centre of their long and dirty fight?

_Maybe he won’t get the job,_ he hoped like mad. _Maybe they’ll take one look at his clothes, turn away, laugh and send him off. I’ll have to nurse his hurt pride, but it’s better than dealing with the trauma he might get._

But through some miracle or stroke of bad luck, Yuuri got the job.

Yuuri was ecstatic. He celebrated. Phichit tried to warn him off and got nothing for his pains. So he told the truth.

But by that point Yuuri was on his second bottle of wine and his one single failing showed its face: Yuuri remembered absolutely nothing the next day.

At first Phichit wasn’t sure, but as Yuuri recounted his first day the editor grew more and more suspicious. And then came the dreaded announcement that the people of _Runway_ hated the editor of _Fantastic Man_ and Phichit knew.

It was no good.

Not only had they – for no valid reason at all – transferred their hate of his predecessor onto him, but Yuuri didn’t have a single memory of their conversation that night.

Now it was too late.

He couldn’t say it now. He could only hope that in Yuuri’s year at _Runway_ it would never come up. And for a while everything seemed more or less fine.

Phichit hadn’t intended for his promotion to be a big secret, no he’d just waited for the perfect opportunity to invite Yuuri to New York, take him somewhere big and fancy and announce it. An opportunity he never got. First he dealt with the press. Then he waited for Yuuri to be done with exams. Yuuri’s arrival in New York caught Phichit by surprise and in the middle of a mad rush at work. Then as Yuuri’s search got more and more hopeless Phichit felt like the time wasn’t right at all. So he waited for Yuuri to find something so that they could celebrate both of their new jobs. It’s just that he hadn’t expected Yuuri to get a job with _Runway_.

Phichit’s invitation to Victor’s – that is _Runway_ ’s – Christmas party arrived as did the time to break what had become a tradition. It was time to patch up the relationship between _Runway_ and _Fantastic Man_. Mr. Cialdini came into his office and suggested that he go. Or ordered. Phichit wasn’t completely sure.

_Maybe Yuuri won’t go,_ he hoped like mad. _Maybe second assistants aren’t important enough._

He would’ve asked Yuuri. He would’ve changed his mind about going and risked his job to back out, but Yuuri was barely at home now.

And then life dealt him a serious blow.

 

_“I did a terrible thing.”_

_“Did you spit in Victor’s drink, or something?”_

_“I slept with Victor Nikiforov. Twice.”_

 

Yuuri, his sweet, innocent and naïve friend had actually slept with the cruel and manipulative editor of _Runway_. His mind reeled at the thought. How? How did things get so far out of hand?

He opened his mouth to tell the truth at last and risk losing his friend.

And was _once again_ interrupted by someone from _Runway_.

Phichit wanted to tell Yuuri everything. He really did, but email wasn’t the way, so he stuck to hints and told Yuuri about Victor’s past lovers. After some hesitation he sent the article with his first interview as the editor of _Fantastic Man_. Email wasn’t the way, but Yuuri had to be prepared to see his friend in the evening. None of his emails got any sort of reply and Phichit could only guess at what effect they had on Yuuri. He cursed himself. He should’ve sat Yuuri down and forced him to understand.

But how can someone explain a dirty and scandalous world to a person with an innocent mind like Yuuri’s? Not just an innocent mind, but also an innocent face.

He headed to the Christmas party with a heavy heart, cursing every wrong choice he’d made and hoping that Yuuri would be smart enough to make the right one.

_Yuuri, please, you need to understand what a mess you’ve gotten yourself into and do the only logical thing: quit your job and dump Victor._

But Yuuri wasn’t the type to sleep with just anyone. If he’d slept with Victor, it only meant one thing: the editor had the poor boy’s heart.

 

It was the most stressful Christmas party Yuuri had ever attended (and that included the one time in university when he ended up at the same party as a journalist he looked up to). Luckily for him, Phichit greeted him and Yuri as if he was seeing them for the first time. Victor didn’t see him enter at all.

The first assistant then shared his brilliant plan, which included keeping Victor as far away from alcohol and Phichit as possible: it was up to Yuuri to keep the conversation going between Victor and his friend, while Yuri kept an eye on the time to give Yuuri the signal when the customary thirty minutes were up. Then it was up to Yuuri to make any kind of comment that would sound innocent to someone else, but which Victor would interpret as Yuuri getting impatient.

Yuuri was so nervous at this point that he didn’t even blush at this suggestion. This earned him a suspicious glare from Yuri.

“Something wrong?” the first assistant demanded.

“No. I just…” Yuuri sighed and his eyes hunted for Phichit in the crowd. _He’s still at the other end of the room. Thank God!_ “I just… I don’t know what to say,” he admitted. “My mind is completely blank right now.” He clutched his hands nervously.

Yuri’s expression didn’t change. “What are you so nervous about?”

“Well…” _That any second now I will say something and it will give everything away and then you will kill me with your bare hands._ “I… uh, don’t know what to say that doesn’t make it obvious that I’m… you know.” Now the blush came to his face. What was the point? Yuri could probably read everything on his face anyway. _Oh God, help me._

Yuri sighed and rolled his eyes. “You’ll have to think of something. Go talk to them.”

“M-me?”

“Oh, you thought you could drag their conversation out by standing here with me?”

Yuuri took a deep breath. “B-but won’t it seem strange to…”

“Then come up with an excuse!” Yuri hissed. “Honestly! Do I have to think of everything?”

Yuuri adjusted his shirt self-consciously and headed towards the two editors. He felt his stomach turn over. _Oh God, I think I’m going to collapse right here. When was the last time I ate?_

A waiter passed him with a tray full of tiny sandwiches. Yuuri eyed it hungrily, but kept going. He stepped up to Victor, waiting for the opportune moment to join the conversation between him and Stéphane.

“Oh, it’s the young man from before,” Stéphane said in a tone of mild surprise, noticing the second assistant. “Yuuri, right?”

Yuuri nodded.

Victor smiled at his assistant. “He helped me organize this little evening, Stéphane.”

_Little evening? I feel like a third of New York is here right now!_ Yuuri nodded dumbly. _Oh God, I can’t think of a single thing to say._ He resisted the urge to look for Phichit.

In any other circumstances, the knowledge that Phichit wasn’t far away would’ve lent him strength, but now it was turning his insides out.

The band struck up a tune. There were happy exclamations from the crowd around them and people rushed to find a partner for a dance.

Yuuri caught Yuri’s eye and saw the first assistant’s horrified expression. The band started too early! They’d specifically told them to start forty minutes after all the guests arrived so that Victor wouldn’t be there to potentially invite Yuuri.

Would Victor decide to dance? Yuuri avoided making eye contact with him.

“Reminds me of our time in college,” Stéphane said. He nodded to the music.

“Yuri and I found this band thanks to Victor’s suggestion,” Yuuri spoke up, much to his own surprise. He went on about the band and their history, unable to believe that he could actually remember so much of it. As Yuuri spoke he dared to throw a look at Victor. The editor had his usual polite smile on his face.

After all this time Yuuri still had no way of knowing what was on his mind.

Victor caught his eye and smiled wider. Yuuri returned the smile without thinking. And for a moment time stood still. Maybe Stéphane noticed the way they looked at each other, but it didn’t matter. The warm lighting of the room fell on Victor’s face and Yuuri’s mind was suddenly elsewhere.

Yuri caught his eye, jolting him out of his reverie and Yuuri realized he’d stopped mid-sentence. Stéphane smiled politely.

“And?” he prompted.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri said, “I just remembered that I forgot to write a thank you note for the bouquet of flowers that arrived at the office this morning,” Yuuri said, hoping like mad that the blush in his cheeks wasn’t noticeable and that the subtle hint would be understood.

Victor made a barely perceptible nod of the head.

Stéphane’s eyes were still on Yuuri. “Who was it from?”

Yuuri stuttered nervously. “I… uh… forgot to check.” _Darn! I should’ve invented someone, but I can’t think of anyone right now._ He fought the urge to look at Victor, afraid that would give it all away. His head was too full of the editor at the moment.

Around him people were having a good time, mingling and gossiping. He could hear two people flirting in a way that suggested that both parties already had too much to drink.

_How can they go on as normal? How can they even look at anyone else when_ he _is in the room? When it’s obvious that there is no one else like him?_ He tried to suppress those thoughts, but he turned his head and caught Victor’s eye.

There was that smile again. Could he see what was going through Yuuri’s mind? Yuuri knew all too well that he wasn’t good at deception and that his feelings were always written all over his face, but just how much did the editor see?

“You’ll have to excuse me,” Victor said and nodded at Stéphane. “You know I never stay long.” And, in a quieter tone of voice, he added, “Don’t forget that thank you note, Yuuri.”

He walked out before the dancing really got underway, before the dinner that the two assistants spent forever trying to coordinate, before any of the other events scheduled for that evening could start. He didn’t even give a speech or a formal goodbye. He acted just like he’d had at all of the previous Christmas parties at _Runway_ , despite the fact that the editor of _Fantastic Man_ was in the same room as him.

Victor left the building and Yuuri suppressed the urge to breathe out a sigh of relief. They’d succeeded.

Stéphane smiled at Yuuri. “He gets tired of parties quickly.”

Yuuri nodded absent-mindedly. He was still staring after Victor, unable to tear his eyes away from the door that had closed behind him. _Is he going to try talking to me now? Damn! I need an excuse to leave._

He could feel Stéphane studying his face with interest. “I’m curious to learn more about you,” Stéphane said.

_Oh Great! Is he flirting with me?_ Yuuri kept his eyes lowered. _This is so awkward._

“But I won’t keep you,” Stéphane went on. He stepped up close to Yuuri and added in a quieter tone of voice, “Don’t get the wrong idea: I’ve known Victor longer than anyone else. If you break his heart, I won’t forgive you.”

Yuuri stared into the editor’s face and got a big happy smile in return.

“It’s his birthday tomorrow, so go easy on him, alright?”

Yuuri nodded, barely aware of what he was doing. And, not even bothering with coming up with any kind of excuse, he ran out of the room.

The cold air outside hit him hard. He had no coat to pull on, so he settled for hailing a cab while jumping from foot to foot to keep warm. When the cab did arrive he gave Victor’s address and then fought the urge to rush the driver.

He sat in the back of the car and tried not to think, but his brain just wouldn’t stop. _What do I do now? Should I even go?_ He wrapped his arms around himself. _It’s bad enough that I’m sleeping with my boss, but…_

He buried his face in his hands. His thoughts turned to that morning.

_Here I am running after him at a single word. He’s conditioned me to obey his orders without question. How long before he asks me to do something I can’t?_

And he thought of the editor, standing amid his guests, radiating an aura of power as always. What was it about him that made everyone obey his every whim? Why was it that he could call up any of the people from _Runway_ at any time of the day and they’d drop whatever they were doing and come running?

How could he, Yuuri, resist a pull like that? He was just one weak human being. People like Victor were made of something else, something that made them superhuman.

_And the day will come when he’ll grow tired of me and cast me aside. What will I do then?_

His phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket. “Yes?”

“Yuuri,” Phichit’s voice cut in, reminding Yuuri of his life before _Runway_ , “we need to talk. Where are you?”

“I can’t talk right now. Let’s talk tomorrow.” _And you can tell me why you never mentioned that you were the editor of_ Fantastic Man.

“You’re going to him, aren’t you?” Phichit said. “Oh, Yuuri, why –”

“I don’t have to explain anything to anyone,” Yuuri cut him off. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He hung up and tried not to think about the situation he was in.

“Tough night?” the taxi driver asked.

“Yes.” _And I’m afraid it’s about to get worse._

But Yuuri’s fears were unfounded. When he arrived at Victor’s apartment he found the editor sprawled out on the couch, asleep in his clothes. Yuuri pocketed his key and locked the door.

Makkachin got up from his place by his owner and ran up to Yuuri to greet him.

Yuuri patted Makkachin, his eyes on the editor. _Do I take him to his bedroom? Will that wake him up? When he realizes he fell asleep in his clothes he will be furious!_

Yuuri leaned over Victor and unbuttoned his jacket slowly. He lifted Victor to pull it off, but still the editor went on sleeping. Yuuri managed to pull all his clothes off, leaving him only in his underwear, without waking Victor. Then he picked the editor up and carried him into the bedroom, where he made him as comfortable as he could.

_Now what?_ Yuuri returned to the living room, sat down on the couch, and tried to talk himself into going home.

 

For the first time in the last couple of days Victor woke up to find the space beside him empty. He sat up in alarm and tried to remember what had happened the night before. Where was Yuuri? Why wasn’t he here?

He climbed out of bed and was surprised to find that he was in his underwear.

Did they have a fight? He went to the bathroom as if expecting to find the answers to his questions there.

After a while he remembered coming home, but he couldn’t remember Yuuri joining him.

_He promised he’d come! Where is he?_ Victor felt betrayed.

He’d looked forward to spending his whole birthday with Yuuri, but now he wondered what to do. Did Yuuri misunderstand something?

_I forgot to write a thank you note for the bouquet of flowers that arrived at the office this morning_. The boy had said those words himself. He wasn’t actually talking about a thank you note, was he?

Victor sighed. No, it was no good. The apartment was too empty. He looked around for Makkachin, who used to be such a great source of comfort, but couldn’t find him either.

_What’s going on?_

He went to the living room, wondering if Makkachin was there and stumbled into an innocent sight: Makkachin lay curled up on the floor at the foot of the sofa where Yuuri lay, also curled up, and fast asleep.

Victor’s face spread into a smile.

In a much calmer mood now, Victor returned to his bedroom and went through his usual routine of beautifying himself while Yuuri slept on. Yuuri didn’t wake even by the time Victor finished. Remembering the previous morning, Victor smiled and pulled out his phone.

 

The smell of something delicious brought Yuuri gently into the land of the awake and hungry. Several seconds of disorientation passed before he realized he’d passed out on Victor’s couch. Victor stood over him with a radiant smile.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty!”

Yuuri sat up, feeling embarrassed. What would Victor think of him now?

Victor held out his hands and helped Yuuri to his feet.

“Breakfast is on the table, freshly delivered.”

Yuuri smiled. Victor looked happy – a rare emotion for him in Yuuri’s experience and he wasn’t going to spoil the mood.

“It’s snowing outside,” Victor added. “Let’s stay in. I’ve never stayed inside all day before.”

Yuuri nodded. He went to the bathroom, his head full of the things they could do.

His phone rang, cutting into his thoughts. He saw who the caller was and his heart sank. He felt his good mood evaporate.

“Hello?” He didn’t dare address him by name for fear of Victor overhearing.

“Yuuri, listen, are you alright? Only there are some odd rumours going around and –”

“You know where I am,” Yuuri said coldly.

“Yes, but,” Phichit made a frustrated noise. “Look, I need you to listen to me.”

“No, _you_ listen to me,” Yuuri said, raising his voice. He remembered where he was and lowered it again. “You knew _who_ I was working for,” he hissed, locking the bathroom door and leaning against it, “before I even… um… before all of this started. You _knew_. I told you so many things and never _once_ have you mentioned working for…”

“Yuuri,” Phichit began, “I didn’t –”

“What? What is your excuse going to be?” He knew he was just taking out his frustration on his friend and that Phichit, after so many years of good friendship, didn’t deserve such a tone, but he’d never felt so betrayed in his life. “You _knew_! I told you everything!”

“And what should I have done? Interrupted you to say “oh, by the way, it’s been me all along”?” Now Phichit was losing his temper too. “I told you the night you got drunk and then it took me a while to figure out that you forgot. And then I decided that it didn’t matter. You were always at work, you were never there! But at least it’s only for a year, I told myself. And now _this_. Yuuri, what do you want me to say? It’s insane! What’s gotten into you? You’ve never been like this before! He’s done something to you, messed with your head in some way. You can’t go on like this. Love affair or not, this job will kill you and you need to quit before it does!”

“What does it matter to you? You hate him! You hate all of us! It’s my life and I do what I want!” He hung up angrily and collapsed on the floor.

Tears tumbled from Yuuri’s eyes. He covered his face with his hands, but still the tears came.

A voice in the back of his mind protested that Phichit was right, but he didn’t care. How could Phichit do this to him?

His phone rang and he answered it without thinking. “Yes?”

“Yuuri, I’m sorry,” Phichit said. “It’s my fault. Please, can you come home and we’ll talk about it?”

“I don’t want to talk to you.” he hung up and rose to his feet.

Victor wanted to spend a day together with him. He was going to get a day he wouldn’t forget.

Yuuri washed his face and fixed his hair. He paused for a moment to admire his reflection in the mirror. For the first time in his life he thought how strange his reflection seemed and how unlike him. Was that who he was now?

His phone rang a third time. Yuuri declined the call and turned his phone off.

Victor was in the kitchen when Yuuri returned. The breakfast was on the table and Yuuri eyed it like a person standing on an island watched the only bridge to the mainland burn.

He climbed onto Victor’s lap and wrapped his arms around Victor’s neck.

Victor caught Yuuri’s lips in a kiss. Yuuri was all too aware how much he needed to be touched in that moment and he responded with more enthusiasm than he’d ever done.

The words rose to his mouth a second time, but again he couldn’t say them.

Victor was getting carried away with his kisses. It was obvious that he’d completely forgotten about the food on the table. Yuuri let his jacket slide off his shoulders and started to unbutton his shirt when Victor caught his hands.

“No, let me.”

Yuuri’s heart beat faster.

“My dear Yuuri,” Victor whispered, taking care with each button. He stopped halfway down and slipped his hands over Yuuri’s skin.

Yuuri gasped. “Your hands are cold!”

“Maybe my lips are warmer,” Victor whispered and reached for Yuuri’s chest with his mouth.

“N-no, it’s alright… I can,” he felt the blood rush to his face, “I can warm up your hands… for you.”

“Maybe you won’t mind warming up my lips as well.” Victor pressed both his lips and his hands against Yuuri’s skin.

Yuuri closed his eyes. It was Christmas. It was also Victor’s birthday. And it was, without a doubt, the oddest Christmas and the strangest birthday Yuuri had ever celebrated.

_And I didn’t even get him a present!_ he thought desperately. And he was still so hungry.

His eye fell on the food on the table. _If I can just…_

Maybe it would’ve gone differently if Yuuri had eaten properly the night before, or if he’d eaten properly for the last couple of weeks. Maybe then he would’ve had a slightly more normal day with Victor, but that wasn’t meant to be.

He reached for a container of what looked like cream cheese, missed and ended up with his fingers all covered in it. _Ah, hell._ He lifted them to his mouth just as Victor looked up to see what he was doing.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” Victor exclaimed and licked Yuuri’s fingers clean.

_What?_ His brain went completely blank. “I-I just… Is it cream cheese?” he asked, feeling like an idiot.

“It is,” Victor said. “At least, I think it is. Why don’t you try it?” He stuck his own fingers in it and held them out for Yuuri to try.

Yuuri closed his eyes and caught Victor’s fingers with his mouth. He pulled away, smiled innocently and took in the blush on Victor’s face. His own face was red now. “D-did I do something wrong?”

“N-no,” Victor said and loosened his collar.

Yuuri reached for the cheese again and spread it over the tip of Victor’s nose. He hesitated before licking it off. “You look funny,” he whispered as he pulled away.

Victor’s face was redder. “Yuuri…” he whispered, wrapping his arms around Yuuri’s waist. “Do it again,” he added.

Yuuri obliged. “Birthday boy,” he said, bringing his lips next to Victor’s ear. “What do you want, birthday boy?”

“I want Yuuri,” Victor whispered back.

Victor’s phone rang and Yuuri pulled away. The editor took the phone out of his pocket and declined the call without checking who it was from. He put the phone down on the table. “Kiss me.”

Yuuri took Victor’s face with his hands.

The phone rang again.

Victor caught Yuuri’s lips with his own. “If I’m not picking up, doesn’t that mean that I’m not available?” he asked, pulling away briefly and then kissing Yuuri again.

Yuuri’s jacket slid onto the floor. His shirt followed soon after.

Still the phone rang.

“It’s really annoying,” Victor complained as Yuuri unbuttoned the editor’s shirt. “Why won’t they stop? I don’t care who it is. I don’t care if it’s a national emergency or the end of the world.” He slid his thumbs over Yuuri’s chest.

Yuuri didn’t say anything. He focused instead on the buttons of Victor’s shirt.

The phone went on ringing.

Victor sighed and reached for it. “I’ll check who it is and turn it off,” he promised.

Yuuri released him.

Victor’s face fell as soon as he saw who it was. “I’m sorry, Yuuri. I need to take this.”

Yuuri climbed off his knees and Victor left the room. He dropped back into the chair and eyed the breakfast on the table. When it became obvious five minutes later that Victor’s phone call was going to take more time, Yuuri ate. He couldn’t remember the last time he enjoyed a meal so much. He ate half the food before he could stop himself.

It still didn’t look like Victor would be back any time soon. Yuuri listened for the sound of his voice, but could only make out any of the words the editor said. He pulled his own phone out of his pocket and turned it back on.

But this time it remained silent. He put it on the table and stared at it, as if afraid it would explode.

Yuuri both hoped and feared that it would ring. He couldn’t find the courage make the call himself.

_Phichit, is it really over?_ He put his hands over his face.

He thought back to the day they’d met. It was in elementary school. Yuuri had forgotten his lunch at home and Phichit was nice enough to share his. They’d shared many hard times as well as fun times since then. Phichit was the youngest of six children. They were all very different from each other, but all of them were fond of Yuuri and treated him like their favourite sibling. He remembered spending sunny Saturday afternoons at Phichit’s house, drinking pop and watching TV.

 

_“I’m going to be the most fashionable man one day,” Phichit said, holding up an issue of_ Fantastic Man. _“One day this will be me.” He pointed at the man on the cover._

_Yuuri smiled. “Then I get to write the first article about you.”_

_Phichit stood up and struck a pose. “The world’s most fashionable man: Phichit Chulanont!” he exclaimed, waving his arm in the air._

_Yuuri laughed and Phichit joined in._

 

There were tears running down Yuuri’s face now. He stared at his phone and willed Phichit to call again. _It can’t end like this! I don’t want it to end like this._ He covered his face with his hands. _I’m so stupid!_

A noise made him raise his head and he saw Victor standing in the doorway.

“Are you crying?” Victor asked, stepping up to Yuuri.

Yuuri lowered his eyes. “No.” He tried to wipe his tears away discretely.

Victor raised Yuuri’s face to look into his eyes. “You are. What’s wrong?” He noticed the phone on the table. “Did someone call while I was away?” He reached for it, but Yuuri grabbed it and put it away in his pocket before Victor could take it. Before he could go through Yuuri’s call history and _find out_.

“It’s not important,” he said and knew it didn’t sound convincing to either of them. He sighed. “It’s about a friend of mine. He’s… worried about me and we had a fight.”

Victor reached down and kissed Yuuri, resting one hand on the table and the other on the back of Yuuri’s chair. Yuuri responded hungrily, grabbing Victor’s shoulders. Several times Victor would pull away and Yuuri would catch him again.

“I can barely breathe,” Victor whispered, pulling free at last and resting his forehead against Yuuri’s.

Yuuri closed his eyes, his arms still around Victor, and focused on catching his breath. Victor freed himself gently and took the seat on the other side of the table. Yuuri put his phone on the table, stood up and went to sit on Victor’s lap. He wanted to ask who Victor had been on the phone with, but couldn’t find the courage to do it.

“Where were we?” Victor asked. “Oh, I remember.” He scooped up more cream cheese with his fingertips and spread it over Yuuri’s chest.

Yuuri turned bright red. He closed his eyes, feeling Victor’s tongue slide against his skin.

“Delicious Yuuri,” Victor whispered. “I think I know a better spot for this.” His hand went down to Yuuri’s stomach.

It was getting hard to breathe. Yuuri clung on to Victor’s neck, wondering if Victor would dare to slide his hand lower.

“Bedroom…” Victor breathed out.

Yuuri nodded. He tried to rise to his feet, but Victor held on to him.

“Don’t rush off just yet,” Victor whispered. “I missed a spot,” and aimed for Yuuri’s heart.

 

Once again Yuuri had the editor of _Runway_ sprawled out in front of him, entirely at his mercy (even if he didn’t think of it that way) and, at first, everything went more or less normally until a certain thought occurred to him.

_I can’t avoid him forever. I will have to go back eventually. I will have to talk to him._

“Yuuri!” Victor gasped, his voice weak, all traces of his powerful aura gone, “Yuuri!”

Yuuri’s hands and body were on one editor while his mind was on another.

_Why, Phichit? Why did it end up this way? Why did I have to get trapped between the two of you? I’m stuck in a choice between my best friend and my boss. No,_ he corrected himself, _let’s be honest, even if I dare not ever say it aloud: my best friend and my lover. How long before the wrong word gives me away? Or I get caught on the phone with you? My phone! Oh my God! I left it in the kitchen! What if –_

He pulled away and dropped onto his back by Victor’s side.

“Why did you stop?” Victor whispered, climbing over Yuuri. “Who said you could stop?”

Yuuri sat up, his face red, but Victor pushed him down and buried his face in Yuuri’s chest. “You asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I said I want Yuuri. Will you give yourself to me?”

Yuuri gasped for breath, but his mind was still on his friend. He had to go home. He had to talk to Phichit and sort it all out. He had to make him see –

Victor was working his way towards Yuuri’s stomach. Yuuri’s mind, unable to deal with his position, both physically and emotionally, shut down completely.

Victor, oblivious of Yuuri’s mental state, kept moving.

_He isn’t…_ Yuuri thought, as more sensations attacked his brain and kicked it into some semblance of activity. _He isn’t going to stop. He’s…_

Yuuri’s mind was in a state that is best described as the sea after a storm had passed: gory bits of a ship drift by and through some trick of nature, or odd joke on Fate’s part a rubber duck floats on the surface among them while everything else of value is making a quick dive for the bottom.

Anxiety reared its ugly head and he started worrying again. _What do I do now? I’ve learned to rely on you too much. I can’t let it end this way. Please..._

“Phichit!” Yuuri gasped just as Victor raised his head and exclaimed:

“You have some –” He gave Yuuri an odd look. “Did you just say something?”

“N-no,” Yuuri stammered out, his face so red it was getting close to purple. “Not at all. Just… nothing.”

Victor leaned over him. “Are you sure? I thought I heard your voice.”

Yuuri searched around for inspiration. “I said ‘please’, as in: more, please.”

“You’re delicious,” Victor whispered into his ear, his hands sliding over Yuuri’s body, “absolutely delicious.”

Yuuri’s heart hammered in his chest. He wondered what to say, aware only of what he’d narrowly avoided. “Th-thank you…” he whispered and winced mentally at how stupid it sounded.

He stuck to saying only Victor’s name after that. There weren’t going to be any other names on his lips.

Afterwards they sat half-dressed on the couch and watched TV. It had been Yuuri’s idea. But Victor couldn’t focus on the movie. Yuuri sat very close to him and couldn’t tear his eyes away from what was happening on the screen, but Victor would try to get his attention back, mostly with kisses and mostly it worked. In the one case when Yuuri was really captivated by what was happening in the movie and Victor’s kiss wasn’t distracting enough, Victor made use of his tongue. Yuuri nearly jumped out of his spot when he felt it touch his neck.

“Let’s do something else,” Victor whispered into his ear, fiddling with his hair.

“L-like what?” Yuuri asked.

“I just had a brilliant idea: let’s go to the Elias-Clarke building.” He slid his finger over Yuuri’s cheek.

_He’s not seriously going to work on his own birthday?_ “Why?”

“I want to see you try some clothes on. I promise it will be fun.”

 

This was turning out to be the best birthday he’d ever had and he was more than happy to spend it only with Yuuri. _Where have you been all my life?_ Victor wondered, sliding his hands up the boy’s back and watching his response.

Yuuri blushed, and smiled, and flirted, and did all of the little things that made Victor happy. The editor didn’t think about the future or how long their relationship would last. His mind was on the present and the boy by his side.

He took Yuuri away to try things on and a good two hours later he made a small discovery: Yuuri was beautiful in everything, even the gown Victor picked out as a joke.

And later in the night he managed to really do it: Yuuri wouldn’t stop gasping out his name and Victor didn’t know how to hide his embarrassment and delight. It was so touching!

It even made up for the fact that he’d found the bed empty the following morning. Yuuri had left him a passionate note that mentioned something about a family emergency and concluded with a promise to return in the evening.

 

Yuuri woke up and found that he couldn’t go back to sleep. For the first time he woke up before Victor. He turned over and touched the editor’s face, taking in the line of his nose and the slight trembling of his long eyelashes. Yuuri shifted closer. He still didn’t understand how Victor’s mind worked. Some days he’d go on about clothes and others – he’d focus on Yuuri alone. Yuuri shifted several strands of hair out of Victor’s face.

_What am I to you? Just someone to keep you company? Or is there more to it than that? Who am I kidding? How can I be more to you than that?_

His mind reminded him of his fight with Phichit. It repeated every single word of their conversation over and over again, making it difficult to stay in one spot. He sighed and slipped out of the bed. He knew he couldn’t rest until he talked to Phichit. Maybe they’d have nothing more than a big fight, but they needed to talk to each other. He couldn’t avoid it any longer.

30 minutes later he was unlocking the door to Phichit’s apartment. It had never been Yuuri’s. He was just staying there temporarily, but now he was barely even doing that. Was Victor’s apartment now his? No, of course not! And for the first time in his life he felt truly homeless.

As soon as the door swung open he braced himself to see Phichit storm out at him.

It was quiet.

He stood on the doorstep, unable to come in. He could turn around and leave. His brain played out the whole scenario: he would go back to Victor and avoid Phichit for weeks until Phichit burst into the Elias-Clarke building and demanded to talk to him. And then a big scandal would follow.

Yuuri remembered the way Phichit had reacted when he’d confessed to sleeping with Victor. Yuuri covered his face with his hands, hating himself more than anything. How could he have said all those things to his friend?

He walked into the living room and found Phichit there, curled up on the sofa, asleep in his clothes.

Phichit was as upset by what happened as he was, then.

Yuuri sat down on the floor beside him and touched his hand gently.

“Hm? What? What time – oh, Yuuri!” He pulled Yuuri onto the sofa next to him. “I kept calling and it kept going straight to voicemail and so I stopped. I’m sorry, I really am.”

“No, Phichit, I’m sorry.”

“I made a mistake,” Phichit went on. “I wanted to tell you properly, but stuff kept getting in the way and then I thought it wouldn’t be so bad. There isn’t really a conflict of interest, so you wouldn’t get in trouble. And then you told me what they thought of me, which made no sense. We’re not really rivals. He’s working for a women’s fashion magazine! While _Fantastic Man_ is for men.” Phichit went on, the words tumbling out of him, as if he was using this chance to tell Yuuri everything. “Listen, Yuuri, I never provoked him into a rivalry. My predecessor did and I tried to patch things up, but for some reason everyone at _Runway_ just transferred their hate for him onto me.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Yuuri admitted in a voice so low it was almost a whisper. He’d only half-listened to what Phichit had said. Now that he wasn’t in the same room as Victor the situation hit him harder. Now he _knew_ and that meant that he had to do something. He had to come to a decision and act. He pulled his legs up onto the sofa and wrapped his arms around them.

“Quit.”

Yuuri gave him a terrified look. _How can I do that?_ “I can’t.”

“Then tell him the truth. It will come out eventually.” Phichit put a hand on his shoulder.

“And you think he’ll believe me when I tell him it’s a coincidence with … the way things are?”

“Hmm… probably not.”

They sat in complete silence for several minutes.

And then he remembered that his laid back friend was the editor-in-chief of a magazine. Yuuri was still having a hard time accepting that fact. He thought back to the dinner with the editors, of how cool and in control they seemed, as if they were the rulers of little kingdoms and tried to imagine Phichit as one of their group.

“But when I was looking for work why didn’t you…?”

“Because I could never be my friend’s boss,” Phichit said simply.

_That’s where you and Victor differ,_ Yuuri thought.

“If you’re so set on staying,” Phichit said after another pause, “promise me it won’t be for more than a year. Promise me that when a year is up you will leave and find a better job.”

Yuuri’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket. “He’s calling me,” Yuuri whispered.

Phichit caught his arm. “Please, Yuuri, you can’t keep doing what he wants just because he’s your boss.”

Yuuri opened his mouth, but couldn’t find the right words to say.

“You can do what you want once in a while. If that’s him calling to see you, tell him you have plans.”

“What?” Yuuri asked in a small voice.

“Go on,” Phichit raised the phone to Yuuri’s face. “Say it.”

Yuuri accepted the call. “V-Victor?”

“Yuuri, did you cancel all my appointments for the next two weeks? I asked the other Yuri to take care of it, but I suspect that he forgot.”

“Yes, Victor, I will right away.”

Yuuri prepared to hang up when Victor caught him off guard with his next words, “Meet me for lunch.” He gave the name of the restaurant and rang off.

“I have to go meet him,” Yuuri said, lowering his hand.

“Promise me you’ll quit in a year,” Phichit repeated, standing up and blocking the doorway so that Yuuri couldn’t escape.

Yuuri gave him a sad smile. “I’ll get fired before a year goes by.”

“Why?” Phichit stared at him in confusion.

“Because he’ll get tired of me by then and find an excuse to fire me.”

Phichit crossed the room and joined Yuuri on the couch. “He doesn’t deserve you, Yuuri.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re my friend,” Yuuri said quietly and sighed.

“You’ve made up your mind about this haven’t you?” Phichit looked into Yuuri’s face.

Yuuri avoided Phichit’s stare. They sat side by side on the couch and Yuuri resisted the urge to sigh again.

“If you’re going on another date,” Phichit began slowly and Yuuri turned to look at him. “Can I choose your outfit?”

“You want to?” Yuuri asked, surprised by his friend’s suggestion.

“Of course! It’s my job to pick out clothes for other people. It’s not often I get to do it for a friend.” He stood up. “You can’t go around all day in clothes you wore yesterday.” He considered his words for a moment and added, “Don’t get the wrong idea: this doesn’t mean that I agree with what you’re doing.”

Yuuri didn’t know what to say to that. He followed Phichit into his closet, seeing everything in a different light this time.

“Well?” Phichit asked after a while. “I can see you’re thinking about him.”

“Victor’s closet is bigger,” Yuuri said and blushed. “Ah! I didn’t mean to offend you, I –”

Phichit laughed. “Of course it is. Come on, I have an idea.” He went through his clothes until he found what he was looking for.

Yuuri, knowing all too well what came next, started to undress.

Phichit turned around just as Yuuri was almost finished. “What is that?”

A blush crept up to Yuuri’s cheeks as he realized he was in another item from Victor’s lingerie line. “I… uh… it’s underwear…” He wished he could just brush it off as if it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

“It’s so boring!” Phichit said, making Yuuri stare at him in shock. “Here, I’ll find you something much more exciting.” He paused for a moment, gave Yuuri a thoughtful look and headed for a different room.

_Don’t tell me you used to have your own lingerie line too!_

Some relationships are built on trust: both parties tell each other their deepest, darkest secrets, as well as the minute details of their day (and, presumably, the stuff that fits in between). Some relationships hang on not discussing certain things: the lack of knowledge allows them to go on as they are until a sudden revelation destroys everything.

Yuuri knew this and was always in favour of the first type of relationship, but when it came to Victor he was so convinced that it wasn’t going to last, that Victor would tire of him soon and it would all be over, that he didn’t bother. So what if the editor of _Fantastic Man_ was his best friend? In a few months it wouldn’t matter.

That’s not to say that he didn’t feel guilty about the lie. He went through many reasons in his head, trying to justify it to himself, but still wasn’t completely convinced.

And then he remembered what one of the articles Phichit had sent him said. _Perhaps Victor sees his lovers as sources of inspiration and, so, when the season ends he needs a new source, so he casts his current lover aside and looks for a new one._

That, at best, gave him time until the spring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I present, for your viewing pleasure, a really beautiful piece of art [of Victor as the editor](http://witharthurkirkland.tumblr.com/post/162693696473/i-give-you-the-editor-of-runway-victor-nikiforov).  
> Also, if anyone is too shy to comment here or just wants to drop by my tumblr and drop me a message/ask (anonymously or otherwise), my username is witharthurkirkland.


	16. Il Muto

The next day found Victor Nikiforov in an excellent mood. He spent his lunch with Yuuri in his office, going through the preliminary plans for the February issue, not even bothering to take a break for food. He let his first assistant take care of his New Year’s plans.

He held Yuuri’s left hand as Yuuri noted down his words and squeezed it. _I want to arrive at the office with you by my side,_ Victor thought as he watched Yuuri write.

His phone was full of the pictures he’d taken on his birthday of Yuuri in different outfits. He’d snuck a few photos when Yuuri turned around, but his favourite remained a photo he’d accidentally caught of Yuuri’s bare shoulders when he was trying to capture the gown.

The clothes Yuuri arrived in for their lunch the following day had come as a surprise. There was a different touch to them. It wasn’t like Chris at all and he wondered where Yuuri got them from, but before he could ask the question his memory flipped a card.

Last month’s issue of _Fantastic Man_. Page 12. There was that flair that Mr. Chulanont had an eye for. So Yuuri was copying what he saw in magazines now. It was certainly a step in the right direction.

But what was more interesting was what he’d worn _under_ those clothes. Victor had actually stopped undressing him to take in all of the details. There were ties on the sides and most of it was made from sheer material that left nothing to the imagination (not that Victor would’ve needed to use his imagination). It was a lot bolder than anything he’d designed. He wondered where Yuuri had found it and then wondered if he could get a good look at it to find a tag that would tell him who the designer was. His mind was too busy afterwards to remind him to do this.

 

_Yuuri blushed like someone who’d forgotten all about it. He put his hands over his face and mumbled something incoherent. Victor pulled them away and rewarded him with a kiss._

_“It suits you.”_

_“Y-you think so?”_

_“I know so.” He leaned in for a second kiss and let the boy get carried away._

_“Please take care of me,” Victor whispered, sitting down on the bed and pulling Yuuri onto his knees._

_There was that beautiful smile again. It dazzled him every time he saw it._

 

Victor released Yuuri’s hand, trying to keep himself under control. He wanted to see another smile on that face and he wondered what he needed to do for that.

Yuuri had small, neat handwriting and Victor tried to distract himself by reading the notes, which, inevitably, lead to him correcting his assistant’s wording.

“You have a meeting with Emil in 10 minutes,” Yuuri reminded the editor, closing his notebook.

Victor smiled and tucked a lock of Yuuri’s hair behind his ear. There was that look of surprise on his face he had whenever Victor caught him off guard: his eyes widened and his lips parted slightly. Somehow it always drew Victor in for a kiss.

Victor forced himself to look away and then he rose to his feet. “I’ll prepare for it, then.” He returned to his chair and picked up the magazine on his desk. He pretended to read it intently as Yuuri collected his things and walked out. Victor watched him go over the top of the magazine.

Then his eyes fell on the page he’d flipped to on a whim and his eye caught another outfit designed by the editor of _Fantastic Man_.

_I wonder what Yuuri would look like wearing this._

 

How do you go back to not knowing something? How do you return to blissful ignorance or at least fake it convincingly? Now no matter what Yuuri did he was sure it was suspicious. He avoided mentioning _Fantastic Man_ and was convinced it made others suspicious. Or, maybe, they already knew. He felt miserable, like some sort of criminal – a liar and a thief. Even everyday tasks in the office felt wrong now.

The sound of footsteps made him raise his eyes and he saw Victor standing over his desk with a smile. “I have something for you,” he said and handed Yuuri an envelope.

Yuuri opened it and pulled out what on inspection turned out to be two tickets to an opera.

“The director is an old friend of mine,” Victor said. “She sent me these tickets several months ago. How do you feel about the opera, Yuuri?”

Yuuri stared at the tickets: Grand Ring, for what he suspected would be the opening night of an opera performance given for the very first time, because Victor wasn’t the type to get tickets to even a second performance.

He raised his head and smiled. “Sounds wonderful.”

Victor returned to his office without another word, leaving Yuuri to digest what he’d just agreed to.

Did this count as meeting in public?

 

They met Sunday evening in front of the opera house. Once again, Yuuri was in something Phichit put together for him. By a complete coincidence Victor’s outfit matched Yuuri’s. Both had similar details embroidered on the sleeves. The similarities were made even more obvious by the fact that this time Yuuri had Victor’s handkerchief tucked into his pocket. Phichit had watched him fold it into his pocket clumsily and said nothing, leaving Yuuri to wonder what he thought about it.

The staircase was empty and, for several minutes, they had it all to themselves. Yuuri stopped two steps above Victor and turned around. Neither of them said anything as they took in each other’s appearance.

Victor kissed Yuuri’s hand.

“You’re beautiful,” he said breathlessly, his lips mere inches away from Yuuri’s hand. “You’re very beautiful.”

Yuuri felt his heart beat faster. Down below people’s voices grew louder.

He put his hands on Victor’s shoulders and leaned closer. All day long he’d worried about someone seeing them together and the press writing about it everywhere. Now he found he didn’t care.

Victor put his own hands over Yuuri’s. “Not here,” he whispered.

Yuuri pulled his hands away, turned around and climbed up the stairs, not daring to look Victor in the eye. He could feel the blood rush to his face. How could he get so carried away?

He took his seat and pretended to be interested in his program. Victor sat down beside him and Yuuri found his gaze drawn to his face. Victor reached out and took Yuuri’s hand, but he turned away, as if looking for someone in the audience. All around them people came in and claimed their seats. Yuuri wondered if anyone he knew would be there.

The opera started, but Yuuri barely listened to the singing and only glanced at the stage once. Had he been there as a journalist (and in a different seat, of course), he would’ve taken notes for an article he’d put together overnight. But that possibility didn’t even occur to him now.

He wanted Victor to look at him, but the editor’s eyes remained fixed on the stage. Yuuri had the wild wish that _he’d_ been the one on the stage.

The first act ended and they left their seats for the intermission. And even then Victor barely looked at him.

They found a free table in a small café. A waiter brought them glasses of champagne and a plate with two chocolates on it, but Yuuri had to enjoy them all alone: Victor changed his mind at the last minute and went off to find his friends in the crowd. Yuuri downed his glass as he watched Victor greet someone with a smile that should’ve been his.

It was so stupid of him to come with Victor!

He didn’t enjoy himself at all. The rest of the performance was one long agony. At one point he considered leaving and just going home.

As if he’d voiced this idea out loud, Victor squeezed his hand tighter. Yuuri shifted closer in his seat. He raised Victor’s hand to his lips and kissed it. Very briefly he thought he felt Victor’s hand tremble. Yuuri clutched it tightly, afraid Victor would snatch it away. But Victor didn’t withdraw his hand.

Neither did he rush out when the performance was over. Yuuri was starting to think that Victor didn’t want to spend the night with him at all until they got to the car and he felt Victor squeeze his hand until it hurt.

 _There’s a driver_ , he kept reminding himself. _Not in the car. You’re almost there. Just not in the car._

He didn’t know how he survived that journey without doing something stupid. The same miracle lasted through the elevator trip to his apartment.

 _I’m not listening to another lecture about clothes if I can help it,_ Yuuri decided as Victor opened the door to let them both in.

He helped Victor out of his coat and then Victor took his.

 _I can control myself_ , Yuuri thought as he hung up both coats in the closet.

Makkachin greeted them excitedly as always, but Victor headed straight for the bedroom. Yuuri followed him without another word.

He watched Victor sit down on the bed and climbed on top of him before he could say anything. Yuuri undid Victor’s tie and pulled it off with exaggerated slowness. He dropped it onto the floor. Victor’s jacket joined it soon after. He reached for the top buttons of Victor’s shirt, but Victor grabbed his arms and pulled him into a kiss. Yuuri’s hands worked their way down the buttons as they kissed. When he got to the last button he pulled off Victor’s shirt.

He broke the kiss and stood up. Victor stared up at him, as if waiting to see what he would do next.

“Will you let pole dancer Yuuri take care of you?”

“Ah! Yes!”

Yuuri stripped slowly, still worried Victor would bring up the topic of clothes, but also all too aware how expensive they were. Phichit had coordinated his entire outfit once again down to his underwear and he suddenly wanted to see how Victor would react to it.

 

Victor was conscious of Yuuri’s eyes on his face the entire performance, but he was a public figure in a public place and he had to keep himself under control. He made do with holding Yuuri’s hand and kept his eyes on the stage, because he didn’t trust himself to look at Yuuri and not do anything. He’d seen the way the boy’s eyes burned when they took their seats.

The intermission was a torture he hadn’t been prepared for and he went off to find people he knew in the crowd, trying to distract his mind with a conversation about something, anything.

But nothing helped. The intermission ended and he couldn’t focus on the performance at all. Usually he’d be critiquing the costumes, but for the first time in his life he didn’t care about them one bit.

When Yuuri kissed his hand Victor seriously considered getting up and leaving, but he sat through the rest of the opera until the end and even stayed through the long applause at the end as if he really enjoyed the opera.

The trip home was long and he kept asking himself why his apartment was so far away. He did his best to suppress his impatience and probably squeezed Yuuri’s hand a little too hard.

He headed for the bedroom right away without even stopping to think about anything else or to greet Makkachin. Later he’d be embarrassed by this. He’d once prided himself in his strong self-control, but that didn’t matter anymore.

He dropped onto the bed and was about to reach for Yuuri when the boy came himself. Yuuri sat on his lap and started to undress him, but only got about halfway before getting up.

_Don’t play with me, Yuuri. That would be cruel._

“Will you let pole dancer Yuuri take care of you?” Yuuri asked with a strange sparkle in his eyes.

Suddenly it was hard to breathe and he didn’t have his shirt on to be able to loosen it. “Ah! Yes!”

_Did that sound too eager? And you’re teasing me, Yuuri? You’re not in that club: you don’t have to take your time!_

His thoughts were a mess. Each time he’d managed to keep himself under control by going on about Yuuri’s clothes like… like the _editor of a fashion magazine_ , but now he was at a loss. And Yuuri must have noticed it, because he was undressing even slower. When only his underwear was left he paused.

Victor put his hands on Yuuri’s waist. He wasn’t in the right state of mind to think about fashion anymore, but when Yuuri reached down to pull it off Victor interrupted with his own hands. It wasn’t very revealing this time and the ties looked complicated until Victor worked out that all it took was pulling on the ends.

And the whole thing slid down Yuuri’s hips.

Victor gave Yuuri a thrilled look. The boy lowered his eyes and blushed. He freed himself gently and went to get the contents of the top drawer. _Did you forget that I’m still half dressed?_

The next minute Yuuri’s hands were on his belt and Victor bit his lip to keep himself from saying anything stupid.

And then, by some cruel trick of Fate, when Yuuri was on top of him at last, his mind switched gears.

February issue. Valentine’s Day theme. Not an original idea, but they did it every year. Spring was always about florals and pastel colours, but what about something bolder? Bright, strong colours, the celebration of life.

They had to find somewhere outside for the shoot, which ruled out New York, because it was still too cold this time of the year. He could picture it all very clearly: the front page, the photoshoot, the poses for the models…

“Victor!” Yuuri gasped, his hands gripping Victor.

He was suddenly aware of the fact that he got so carried away that he was missing every minute of it.

 _Yuuri is here and now,_ he told himself and suppressed all thoughts of the next issue as best as he could.

But wherever the inspiration was coming from, it refused to stop. Yuuri kissed his back and he imagined models with ruby red lips. Yuuri turned him over and Victor’s mind was going through every model that worked for _Runway_ , trying to pick out the ones best suited for the photoshoot. Yuuri sat on top of him and Victor caught the determined spark in the boy’s eyes.

The flow of ideas stopped.

He stared up at those eyes and waited for something more. As Yuuri leaned down he prepared himself to accept a kiss, but the boy merely dropped down on top of him and fell asleep.

Victor wrapped his arms around him.

_How can you sleep? How can anyone sleep when I am constantly full of thoughts and ideas demanding my attention, demanding to be brought to life? I can barely do anything else._

The last few days had been a temporary reprieve from his usual fights with insomnia, but now it was back with a vengeance.

Yuuri slept on, oblivious to the fact that next to him Victor was suffering.

After an hour Victor’s patience ran out. He got up, showered and got dressed and then went to another room where he sat through the night, sketching his ideas out on paper. The sky outside grew lighter, the noise of the city grew louder and still he worked on, oblivious to the world around him.

A pair of arms wrapped themselves around his neck and he heard Yuuri murmur, “When did you wake up?” into his ear.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Victor answered. “My brain just doesn’t want to stop.”

Yuuri kissed his cheek. “I was worried you’d left without me.”

Victor turned his head and accepted another kiss. “I wouldn’t leave without you,” he whispered.

 

When the sunlight filled Victor’s bedroom its rays brushed against Yuuri’s face, waking him up. He turned over, still half-asleep, reached out for Victor and got an armful of empty air instead.

Yuuri sat up in alarm. The place on the bed beside him was abandoned.

_He left! I promised Yuri I would make sure he wouldn’t come to work before 8 am! But he left! He left without me!_

His eyes fell on a clock on the bedside table. It was already 7:30. He hunted around for clothes and his eyes fell on Victor’s shirt just as he heard a sound from the other room. He pulled it on and went searching for its owner.

Victor sat at a table, sketching something on a piece of paper in front of him. A stack of papers lay on one side of the table. Yuuri didn’t notice it at first. Relief overwhelmed him and he wrapped his arms around Victor.

“When did you wake up?” he asked.

“I couldn’t sleep,” came Victor’s reply. “My brain just doesn’t want to stop.” _It never does. It certainly didn’t last night. You barely paid any attention to me._

Yuuri kissed his cheek. “I was worried you’d left without me.”

“I wouldn’t leave without you,” Victor assured him, catching a second kiss with his mouth.

Yuuri felt his heart beat faster. _Let’s go back, forget work. Spend the day with me._ He lowered his forehead onto Victor’s shoulder.

There were footsteps in the hall and both men turned to see Lilia framed in the doorway. She awarded them a brief look of alarm before turning her back to them.

Yuuri suddenly remembered he was only wearing Victor’s shirt and turned bright red.

“Excuse me, I thought you left, Victor,” she said. “Good morning, Yuuri.”

 _She didn’t know Victor and I are together._ Yuuri remembered, feeling even more embarrassed. _How will I look her in the eye now?_

Victor lowered his pencil and stood up. “No, but I will soon.” He walked out of the room and Yuuri rushed out after him, wondering how he could possibly explain himself.

_What must she think of me now!_

Lilia caught him by the arm as he walked past her. He gave her a frightened look and then turned to watch Victor vanish down the hallway.

“You don’t have to do this, Yuuri,” she said quietly.

“What?” he asked, thrown off by her words. He’d expected her to say something completely different.

“You don’t have to satisfy his every whim,” she whispered so quietly he barely heard her.

“I’m not –” he started to protest.

“Yuuri!” Victor called.

Yuuri pulled free and ran, feeling as if her words chased him down the hallway.

He ran into Victor’s closet, his heart hammering in his chest, not because of his run, but because of the terror that suddenly overwhelmed him, and ended up right in Victor’s arms.

“Ah!” Yuuri jumped up in surprise.

“You’re wearing my shirt,” Victor whispered, one hand running up Yuuri’s back.

“S-sorry.”

Victor kissed Yuuri’s neck. “You don’t need to apologize.”

Yuuri closed his eyes as Victor worked his way down through the buttons. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest.

 _I want this,_ Yuuri thought, Lilia’s words still ringing in his ears as Victor wrapped him in an embrace and kissed his neck. The shirt hung loosely from his shoulders. He raised his hands and pulled them through Victor’s hair.

The kissing got more enthusiastic.

Yuuri felt his knees bend under him. “Bedroom…” he whispered.

Victor tore himself away and released Yuuri. “We need to find you something to wear,” he said and turned away.

Yuuri fidgeted, feeling uncomfortable.

 

It caught him unawares, the sudden knowledge that he could barely say no to Yuuri. He turned away and tried to focus on the clothes around him.

There was work to do. It couldn’t wait. Yuuri could.

Much, much later he would remember this moment. It crystallized itself in his memory. He even remembered the first articles of clothing that caught his eye, the reason he’d dismissed them (forgetting for just one moment the difference in their heights), the smell in the air and the feel of Yuuri embracing him from behind.

His breath caught in his throat and he waited for Yuuri to ask for something. Anything. And he opened his mouth to say ‘yes’.

Seconds ticked by. Yuuri released him and stepped away.

Victor let out the breath he’d been holding.

His mind started working again, reminding him of the clothes he’d ordered for Yuuri. “I have something for you.” And he felt he had enough control over himself to turn around and smile at Yuuri. “Wait here and I’ll bring it.”

It was as if the clothes had been made especially for him. Which they _were_ , Victor reminded himself. They sat just right and, when Yuuri turned at his request, Victor regretted for the first time in his life that he didn’t design clothes for men. He could always design clothes for – he suppressed that thought before he could finish it.

Yuuri accepted compliments with a blush. Victor added a kiss to his praise and then stepped back with a smile to admire him once more.

“Time to go,” he said at last.

Yuuri merely nodded.

They arrived at the Elias-Clarke building together this time. Victor made a show of dictating a list of tasks and Yuuri wrote everything down dutifully, but the rumours would go around anyway. He knew they would and found that he didn’t care.

Yuuri held the door open for him as he walked into his office suite. He checked that the flowers were on Yuuri’s desk and then turned to help him out of his coat, catching Yuuri by surprise yet again. It was harder to resist kissing him this time, but he stepped back before the impulse kicked in and congratulated himself for his self-control.

Yuuri took his coat back and Victor disappeared into his office.

 

The second assistant stared down at his own coat as if seeing it for the very first time and then up into the first assistant’s livid face.

“I swear to God, if it were up to me, you’d be so fired right now,” Yuri muttered. “I’d give you such a…” he searched around for the right words, “kicking out, you’d be all the way up in Canada!”

Yuuri opened his mouth and didn’t know what to say.

“I just hope for everyone’s sake that he’ll use his two weeks to see how stupid this is!”

“T-two weeks? What are you talking about?”

Yuri smiled cruelly. “Hasn’t told you, has he?”

“No.” Yuuri trembled. “What is it?”

“Hmph!” Yuri made a show of rearranging something on his desk. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you, then.”

“Yuri, please!” He stood by Yuri’s desk, wringing his hands.

“Yuuri!” Victor called.

“He wants his coffee,” Yuri said, “probably.”

Yuuri ran into the office. “Yes, Victor?”

“I need you to take care of a few things.” Yuuri dropped into his usual chair, but the editor didn’t move to join him this time and dictated from behind his desk.

Yuuri recorded everything and then ran off to fetch Victor’s coffee.

When he got back Victor was talking to someone in his office and Yuri was too busy on the phone to tell him who it was.

Yuuri brought the coffee into the office anyway and discovered Chris in Victor’s office. The art director gave him a look that Yuuri couldn’t interpret.

“…only tomorrow,” Victor went on, as if Yuuri wasn’t there. “So I’m thinking Wednesday.” He took his coffee from Yuuri’s hand. “Is the car ready?”

“Yes,” Yuuri answered like someone who’d learned to answer yes when they weren’t entirely sure what the answer actually was, but knew what it had to be.

Victor nodded.

“I hope you have a good time,” Chris said, his eyes darting to Yuuri briefly.

Victor was facing the other way so neither of them saw the expression on his face.

Yuuri bit his lip and left the office. “Is the car here?” he asked Yuri.

“Got here five minutes ago,” Yuri replied in a bored voice.

Yuuri dropped into his seat. He didn’t need to ask anything. It was painfully obvious now.

Victor was leaving for a two week vacation and for some reason he hadn’t bothered to tell Yuuri about it.

But what troubled him most of all was the thought that about a month ago would’ve brought him joy and now made his heart tremble: he wasn’t going to see Victor for two whole weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a few days I’m going on a three week hiatus, but I'll try my best to reply to comments during that time. I’m really sorry for doing this. I promise that the parallel with Victor leaving is completely unintentional.


	17. Two Whole Weeks

Two weeks are a lifetime. Yuuri’s life had turned inside out in less. Who knew what could happen in two weeks? Wars, plagues and famines all occurred to Yuuri. He worried about air catastrophes, floods and kidnappings. His imagination was suddenly full of all kinds of horrors and kept inventing new ones every minute.

But most of all he worried that Victor would find someone else, that his time was up and Victor was already tired of him. _It’s not fair! I wanted more time! I’m owed more time!_

There wasn’t a heartfelt farewell in the airport. Yuuri merely sat at his desk while Victor’s car took him there. A mad part of Yuuri’s mind wished the storm would return and keep Victor in New York, but the weather is a fickle old girl and often does the opposite of what everyone wants.

Yuuri was heartbroken. He returned to Phichit’s apartment in the evenings and a regular schedule, but the sudden chance to eat properly and the extra hours of sleep didn’t help him feel any better. His body felt much better, of course, but his mind was in a never-ending battle with itself.

He didn’t know who to talk to. Phichit listened to his explanation for his presence (as opposed to his explanation for his absence) and nodded, and said “good”.

“You have a chance now,” Phichit said, “while it’s not too late to get your thoughts in order and figure out how you’ll break out of this nightmare.”

Yuuri said nothing. He wanted to return to what Phichit called ‘this nightmare’. He longed for the two weeks to end and he wanted to see Victor again even if that meant standing in front of his desk and writing down his tasks for the day. It didn’t help that one of his new tasks was going to the apartment to take Makkachin out for walks. The hired dog walker was off for a few days as well and Yuuri didn’t bother looking for anyone new. When he was outside, he enjoyed his time with Makkachin, but the apartment was full of memories for him, memories he didn’t want to dwell on.

“You gave me such a fright,” Lilia confided in him one evening just as he got back. “When I found you with him I didn’t know what to think!” She sighed. “Not Yuuri, I thought.” And Yuuri was shocked to discover that she was crying. She turned away and brushed tears out of her eyes.

He opened his mouth to explain (although God only knew what sort of explanation he could possibly come up with), but she shook her head and left, apologizing and muttering something about work that needed to be done.

In the few days leading up to New Year’s eve Victor didn’t call or text even once and Yuuri wondered what that meant. Was it all somehow over or was Victor determined to have a complete vacation to the point of not even talking to his assistant? Even if his assistant also happened to be his lover?

A chance to think. He had that now. And all he thought about was Victor. Things he’d done on their first date that irritated him at the time now appeared charming in his eyes.

Yuuri spent the days leading up to New Year’s working and trying to avoid everyone. He didn’t want to go anywhere or see anyone.

Phichit barged into his room on the morning of the 31st and announced that he was taking Yuuri with him.

“Come on,” he said. “It’ll be fun. And don’t worry: no one at the party knows a thing about fashion, so they won’t think anything.”

Yuuri sighed, let Phichit dress him and went.

The party was like any other: loud music, lots of alcohol and people shouting to be heard. Yuuri stepped outside near midnight, feeling his phone vibrate in his pocket.

He stuck a finger in one ear as he answered the call. “Yes?”

“Yuuri!” a familiar voice sang out and Yuuri felt his body go rigid.

“Victor?”

“Happy New Year, Yuuri!” His tone was so different from his usual one that Yuuri didn’t know how to respond.

“I... uh... thank you.”

Victor laughed like a drunk who found everything hilarious. How drunk was he? What if something happened to him?

“Victor, where are you right now?”

“Home,” Victor sang. “Everyone is asleep. It’s just me.”

As Victor’s assistant, Yuuri had access to Victor’s itinerary (which was possibly why Victor never told him about his travel plans) and he found out that Victor went to St. Petersburg to see his family.

He’d even gone through Victor’s calendar and found that most of the schedule was empty, remembering too late that he was the one Victor had asked to make sure that there were no appointments scheduled for the following two weeks.

Yuuri suddenly realized he’d been silent for several long seconds and tried to think of something to say. There was an obvious candidate for that. _I can say it now_ , Yuuri thought. _Will he remember it in the morning?_

He’d avoided alcohol himself, knowing all too well that one drink was always followed by at least ten more.

“Victor, I –”

“There you are!” came Phichit’s voice.

Yuuri exclaimed in fear and ended the call. “Phichit! What –”

“Who were you talking to?” Phichit asked, handing Yuuri a glass of champagne.

“Victor!” Yuuri exclaimed.

 

One Saturday early in January Yuuri got an invitation to Guang Hong’s art show. Having no plans for the day, Yuuri went, grateful for the distraction.

He walked from room to room, taking in every art piece and reading each information plaque. Guang Hong had always been a really good artist, at least for as long as Yuuri had known him. He had his own distinct style, which made all of his work instantly recognizable.

There were quite a few people in the gallery and he was happy to see his friend was getting all this attention. The visitors all came in little groups and laughed and joked as they walked past Guang Hong’s artwork.

Loneliness hit Yuuri like a hammer and he stood in the middle of the crowd feeling miserable. He put his hand over his heart. If only Victor was there to see all this with him.

His mind painted the image of Victor in the crowd looking flawless, unattainable and in control. He would find someone he knew in the crowd and make polite small talk with the air of someone having a deep and meaningful discussion. He’d turn and catch Yuuri’s eye, as if by accident, and a smile would spread over his face. Then he’d cut off the conversation and come up to Yuuri and say –

“Yuuri!”

He nearly jumped at the sound of his name.

Guang Hong appeared by his side, beaming like someone whose biggest wish just came true. “Hey Yuuri! I’m so glad you came! What do you think?”

“M-me?” He looked around the room, as if seeing it for the first time. “It’s wonderful, Guang Hong! This is what you’ve always wanted!”

It wasn’t possible to look happier than Guang Hong looked when he’d approached Yuuri, but somehow the artist managed it. “Thank you!”

Yuuri forced his mind to focus on Guang Hong and not on the editor of _Runway_ who was probably enjoying himself in an expensive restaurant somewhere in the heart of St. Petersburg. “Yes! Oh and I love this piece!” He repeated some of what he’d read on the plaque as he praised it, but Guang Hong didn’t seem to notice.

He was actually blushing from joy.

“I won’t get in your way,” Guang Hong said when Yuuri ran out of compliments. “We all know how awkward it is to look at art with the artist standing next to you.”

“Maybe we can talk later?” Yuuri suggested.

Guang Hong nodded and pulled out his phone and Yuuri knew he was reading what people were saying online about his exhibit. The crowd shielded him from Yuuri’s view and he disappeared into another room.

Yuuri went to the next room as his mind travelled across the ocean to another continent. He glanced at his watch. It was night in St. Petersburg now.

“Yuuri!” a familiar voice called and he turned to see Chris walking towards him. “I thought it was you! What brings you here?” He was grateful to see Chris and it must’ve shown on his face, because Chris smiled back. “I know you’re always happy to see me, Yuuri. I’m glad to see you too.”

“He’s my friend,” Yuuri said, answering Chris’s question. “I-I mean, the artist is my friend, Guang Hong, that is.”

“Really? He’s a friend of a friend of mine,” Chris said. “I guess that makes him a friend of two friends of mine.”

Yuuri laughed, even though it wasn’t very funny. There was something reassuring in Chris’s presence and he wondered why this was so. Maybe it was because he worked for _Runway_ , or, perhaps, it was because of his friendship with Victor.

“As I understand it, Guang Hong has several friends in high places and a couple of them pulled some strings to help organize this,” Chris said.

This was news to Yuuri, but his mind conjured up the image of Phichit’s face, reminding him of his tricky position and making him panic. Would Chris make the connection? Did Chris already know?

Chris was facing away from Yuuri, trying to catch someone’s eye in the crowd, and missed the look of panic that must’ve crossed Yuuri’s face then. By the time he turned back Yuuri managed to regain some of his composure. The art director smiled down at Yuuri.

_I bet he wouldn’t kill me, if he found out. Out of everyone in_ Runway _he’s the most level-headed person there. He doesn’t take everything so personally._

Yuuri smiled back. “I really am glad to see you.”

Chris pulled Yuuri aside, taking him by the arm right above the elbow. “Listen, Yuuri, I wanted to talk to you for a while now. I’m glad I ran into you like this.”

_This is going to be about Victor, isn’t it?_ Yuuri’s heart fell. _You’re about to say what Yuri already told me: that Victor is_ Runway _and that interfering is a big mistake._ “What is it?”

“I worry about you, Yuuri.”

“What?”

Chris patted him on the shoulder. “Sometimes I think about naïve people like you and I worry that others might take advantage of them.”

_What the hell is he talking about?_

“You don’t understand what I’m saying, do you?” Chris sighed. “It’s alright to not want something and tell others as much.” He took in the look on Yuuri’s face. “Listen –”

“Yuuri!” This time it was Leo’s turn to exclaim Yuuri’s name. He gave Yuuri and Chris a bewildered look.

Chris stepped away from Yuuri, smiled and left with an abrupt goodbye.

“Oh my god, Yuuri! I didn’t know Christophe Giacometti is your boyfriend!” Leo exclaimed. “He’s so hot! You should invite –”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Yuuri cut in. “He’s my _friend_.” Could he call him that, if they worked together? But didn’t Chris treat him as a friend anyway?

“You should invite him out with us sometime,” Leo insisted.

For some reason Yuuri imagined inviting Victor out with them instead. In a moment of madness he played out the whole scenario in the privacy of his head:

_“This is Guang Hong. He is an artist. This is Leo. He does website design. And this is Phichit. He’s your rival and you hate him.”_

_Victor sat down with a polite nod at everyone present. After several seconds of stunned silence, Victor launched into small talk with his usual air of mild superiority and everyone acted as if it was the most natural thing in the world._

Yuuri had had several nightmares about Victor and Phichit meeting with him present, but this image was much better than all of them. It made him smile.

“Will you?” Leo asked, bringing Yuuri out of the world where everything worked out perfectly to the real world where everything was too complicated for words.

“Hm? What? Oh... Maybe,” Yuuri said, meaning “no”.

“Guang Hong would love to meet him too!”

Yuuri nodded without a word and then an odd thought occurred to him: “Don’t you think it will be strange to introduce Chris and Phichit?”

“Why?”

“Because Chris works for _Runway_ , while Phichit is the editor of _Fantastic Man_.”

“So? You work for _Runway_.”

“Yes, but –” He stopped, realizing Leo knew nothing of the rivalry between the two magazines. “You’re right,” he conceded. No point in dragging Leo into this too.

He didn’t say any more on the subject and let Leo pull him into another room to demonstrate his favourite piece.

 

Guang Hong’s art exhibit made it into the papers and Yuuri’s heart leapt when he saw the article the next day. He bought the paper from the newsstand in front of the Elias-Clarke building as a small voice whispered into his ear that he should’ve been the one to write that article and rushed off to work.

“Look at this!” he exclaimed, very nearly flying into the office suite. “My friend’s art show is in the papers! It was incredible! I’m so proud of him! I –”

Yuri sat with his head in his hands: a clear sign that something awful had happened.

Yuuri waited for the bad news.

“Nothing is ready and Victor expects us to start the photoshoot tomorrow.” He looked up at Yuuri. “And for some reason I’m hearing this,” he mimicked talking with his hand, “when I want to hear this,” he joined his thumb and the other fingers of his hand, imitating a closed mouth. “So go out there and _do your job_!”

 

Victor took pride in his self-control. Throughout all his love affairs, he was always able to keep his mind on the job and his priorities straight. Now here he was, visiting his family, off on vacation, and unable to think about anything apart from one person.

He would wake up alone and think of Yuuri’s smile, the way his hair was dishevelled in the mornings and how he clung to Victor in his sleep. He would fall asleep and dream of Yuuri climbing onto his lap and covering his face with cream cheese and kisses.

_I have to be in control_ , he told himself. _I need everything to be flawless. I can’t afford distractions. Even if they_ do _come in the shape of a beautiful boy._

He took walks out in the cold mornings. He avoided calling Yuuri. He forced himself to think about something else.

The slip-up on the morning of New Year’s was entirely due to drink and didn’t count.

He had several, drinking along with his family. His father was a heavy drinker and he knew that in his family drinking was hereditary, but he just couldn’t stop.

The two of them stayed up until the early morning, both of them unable to sleep or find something else to do, and drank.

“Is there anyone in your life?” his father asked when there were two empty bottles in front of them. He only ever asked personal questions when he’d had too much.

_I wonder what Yuuri is doing right now._ “No,” he lied.

His father nodded and said nothing.

“I need to call someone,” Victor suddenly said and rushed out to another room.

He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say and, after “Happy New Year”, ran out of ideas. As always, Yuuri came to his aid and started to say something before their phone call disconnected.

Victor headed back to the room and found his father asleep at the table.

_No, it’s not worth it_ , he thought, eyeing his phone. _He can tell me later, whatever it was. If it’s urgent, he’ll just call back right away._

But Yuuri never did.

Victor went to sleep and then had a terrible hangover and didn’t call Yuuri until work demanded it.

“I sent you a description of the location required for the photoshoot for the February issue. Find something suitable.” He hung up as soon as Yuuri said “yes”, as soon as the mere sound of his voice made Victor’s heart beat faster, as soon as he knew his self-control was threatened.

He waited for Yuuri to call back with the details. He got an email with photos. But the place wasn’t good enough and he told Yuuri as much, keeping his email as cold and professional as he could.

24 hours later Yuuri still didn’t have the right spot. Victor was disappointed. He’d had higher expectations of his second assistant and he said so as directly as possible.

“I described what I want clearly enough. At least, I thought it was clear. Was there something you didn’t understand?”

“N-no, Victor,” Yuuri stammered out.

“Then I expect you will find me the right place soon. That’s all.” He hung up, feeling betrayed.

He kept his tone cold for all of the conversations with Yuuri which followed. His head was full of ideas, but even though he left detailed sketches of what he wanted to go into the issue, it soon became obvious that no one was competent enough to follow them.

When the sales figures for the January issue – the first issue Yuuri had inspired and the issue Victor had had redone – were announced they didn’t please him. They were among the highest for _Runway_ , but what did that matter if _Fantastic Man_ still had higher selling figures? What did it matter if Victor took a second look at the January issue he’d put together and found it lacking while the January issue of _Fantastic Man_ was so inspired, so bold and did so much better?

His own staff stumbled through their work on the February issue as if it was their first day on the job and he ended up talking them through it every step of the way. In this way Victor managed an entire photoshoot remotely.

 

To realize Victor’s vision they had to find an indoor garden with the right plants for the models to pose with. Both Yuris spent almost 30 hours straight running between different places, taking photos of the interior and sending them to Victor.

The January issue sold incredibly well. Yuuri heard the excited whispers go around in the halls of the Elias-Clarke building. The first assistant got the honour of telling Victor about it himself and he waited for the best moment, or, as it turned out, the worst moment: when Victor was extremely upset with the way things were going (which is to say that things weren’t going well at all by his standards). Yuri just slipped it in as casually as possible, surprising Yuuri with the sweet tone he’d used.

“Oh, Victor, I just got the numbers of the January sales and this is our best issue in the past ten years. More than that, it’s one of the best-selling issues in _Runway’s_ history.”

Yuuri could hear the barely contained excitement in his voice. He looked up, waiting to see how Yuri would react to the congratulations that were bound to follow, but saw Yuri stiffen instead.

“Yes,” he said, his tone as cold as ice, “you’re absolutely right. Yes.” He hung up and sighed.

Yuuri opened his mouth, but Yuri beat him to it.

“Just because we did well, is no excuse for slacking off,” he said dryly. He got up and walked out throwing instructions over his shoulder. “Man the desk while I go get the photoshoot ready. Victor wants it done today. No excuses.”

Yuuri did his best in following Victor’s instructions. He explored every option. He took no breaks until his body rebelled and then allowed himself short naps and quick snacks on the way. Phichit caught him once and shook his head. Yuuri ran off before Phichit could say anything. He put in all his energy, but still it seemed that it wasn’t enough. Still Victor was unsatisfied. With every conversation it felt as if Victor was merely drifting further and further away from him.

_It’s over,_ Yuuri suddenly thought. _No, no it can’t be! It can’t!_ And the next thought that hit him made him sit down and stop breathing for several seconds.

_He found someone else._

He covered his face with his hands, waiting for the tears that would inevitably come, but his eyes remained dry. His chest was tight and he thought his heart would burst any moment.

_I knew it would end soon, so here it is. He hasn’t even bothered to tell me, expecting I will find out soon enough._ He sighed. _Maybe if I work hard enough, he’ll keep me by his side at least._ He stood up and went to work.

He listened to rumours, but the only ones about Victor were also about him and he realized for the first time how wild some of the stories were that went through the rumour mill.

But half of the personnel at the Elias-Clarke building was absent, so who knew what mad new theories would be born when they returned from their holidays?

Either way, he felt as if he was surrounded by nothing but hostile people. If only he had at least one ally among them who would _know_ and who would support him. Maybe it would be easier to bear it all somehow.

It didn’t take long to think of the person best suited for the job.

Maybe he was just being paranoid. Maybe Victor was just upset Yuuri couldn’t do his job better. Maybe he would return and everything would be alright.

But Yuuri felt like someone who’d lifted more than they could carry and needed to unburden himself to someone else, so he promised himself to do so at the earliest opportunity.

It had become clear very quickly that Victor didn’t know that time zones existed. Yuuri considered telling him, but the only time he tried to bring it up Victor changed the subject, claiming he was too busy to waste time with idle chit-chat.

So the people of _Runway_ turned their clocks forward and worked by St. Petersburg’s time, which someone once called the night shift. The preparations for the photoshoot began in the evening.

He paused in the middle of the crowd of panicking models, designers, art directors and took it all in. He felt like a rock in the middle of a river, the torrent of water breaking against him, trying to push him on, but he stood his ground. It was true chaos, plain and simple, with no one to bark orders and everyone tried to get done what they thought needed to be done.

A model stood still, not panicking, perfectly at peace. There was even a smile on her face. She looked at Yuuri and he stared back.

Someone’s head got in the way, breaking their eye contact and he half expected her to be gone when the person moved out of their line of sight.

But she was still there.

Yuuri tried to remember where he’d seen her before.

She beckoned with her finger.

The phone in Yuuri’s pocket rang and he knew it was Victor without even checking his phone.

It was time to make order out of chaos.

 

Photoshoot was one way of describing what took place, but not the way Yuuri would’ve described it, given the chance. He spent the entirety of the photoshoot running back and forth, fetching photos and then sending them to Victor for approval to avoid a complete reshoot of the whole issue.

They took a break partway through the photoshoot when it turned out that some equipment wasn’t working properly. People joked about Murphy’s Law, while secretly glad for an excuse to stop and catch their breath.

Yuri himself left to make sure everything would be ready to go within the hour.

Remembering his promise to himself, Yuuri spotted Chris and decided it was his chance. He walked through the crowd until he was two steps away from the art director.

Chris caught his eye. “Hello, Yuuri.”

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Yuuri said, pulling Chris out of earshot of everyone else. “I… uh… I don’t know how best to say it, but…” He looked up into Chris’s smiling face and braced himself for the response that would undoubtedly follow. He took a deep breath. “Phichit is my best friend.”

“What?”

“Phichit Chulanont, the editor of _Fantastic Man_ , is my best friend.”

Chris raised his eyebrows. “Is he really?”

Yuuri nodded and lowered his eyes.

“Oh good, now I can tell Victor and he can fire you for industrial espionage.”

“What?” Yuuri gave him a shocked look.

“Isn’t that what you wanted to hear?” Chris asked.

“No!”

Chris folded his arms over his chest, but there was still a smile on his face. “Then what did you expect me to say?”

“I… I don’t know,” Yuuri admitted.

“Come on,” Chris said. “Let’s talk somewhere private. Come to my office.”

“You have an office?”

Chris laughed. “I’m an art director; of course I have an office! Just because I hang around in Victor’s all the time doesn’t mean I’m not entitled to one.”

Unlike Victor’s office, which was the perfect example of minimalism at its finest, having no more than the essentials, Chris’s was full of all kinds of interesting things. The walls were covered in giant posters of various _Runway_ covers, presenting an exhibit in fashion over the past century. The furniture was colourful and looked like it belonged more in a lounge than in an office. The desk was littered with all kinds of personal items, including several awards Chris had won. But what caught Yuuri’s eye was a photograph depicting a young man kissing Chris on the cheek while the art director beamed happily.

Chris caught Yuuri looking and picked the picture up. “Maybe, I’ll introduce you sometime.” He returned the photo to its spot and Yuuri noticed the fond expression on his face. It vanished as soon as Chris turned to look at Yuuri.

“Going back to your situation, Yuuri.” He perched on the edge of his desk. “As your friend, I feel like I should pick up the phone right now and tell Victor.”

“What? Why? As- as my _friend_?”

“Yes, because that would _hopefully_ mean that this…” Chris waved his hand, “…whatever-it-is would finally be over.”

“What are you talking about?” Yuuri asked, knowing exactly what Chris was about to say.

Chris sighed. “Yuuri, you’re a smart young man. You’re talented. You’re handsome. Don’t look at me like that. I told you: I’m not interested. I’m just telling you the truth. Let me make this easy for you: if Victor hadn’t been your boss, would you still be sleeping with him?”

Yuuri opened his mouth to respond with an emphatic ‘yes’ and paused.

Chris raised an eyebrow. “I’m not going to say anything to Victor, if you promise to sort this out. Like I said, you’re a smart young man: I know you can figure out how to do this properly.” He stood up. “Come on. They’ll be looking for us, if we’re away too long. I don’t want any more silly rumours going around the place. God knows there are more than enough of those.”

As they walked back Chris’s phone rang.

“Hello, Victor,” he said with his usual cheery tone of voice. “Yes, the equipment is fixed and we’re ready to go. …I see… I will make sure.”

Yuuri, who considered it rude to listen in on other people’s conversations, caught every word, feeling paranoid.

Would Chris tell Victor what Yuuri had told him? He braced himself to hear Phichit’s name, but Chris merely went on about the details of the photoshoot as if Yuuri wasn’t there.

Yuuri felt all of his old doubts resurface. Hadn’t he said himself that Victor had conditioned him to act like this? Hadn’t he seen Victor do it to everyone he met? Hadn’t he himself been shocked by how far everyone was willing to bend over just to please him? Hadn’t it seemed wrong that at one word they ran, dropping everything? And he himself had done the same! Hadn’t he?

_No, I wanted this from the beginning. I’ve been in love with him ever since I laid eyes on him._

There are different kinds of lies and some would argue that there are harmless ones, or ones that people are justified in telling. But the most dangerous lies are those we tell ourselves.

 

The two weeks came to an end two days after the photoshoot.

The editor of _Runway_ walked in, looking flawless, unattainable and in control. Yuuri held his breath, waiting for the first words Victor would say to him.

“Did you get my coffee?”

“Yes, Victor.”

The editor paused in the doorway. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Yuuri said and meant it, “nothing is wrong.”

Victor nodded. “Good,” he said and turned away with a smile on his face.


	18. A Sensational Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the big wait! I didn't think I'd end up posting a whole week later than intended, but... anyway, here it is.

Victor went through the Book as always, making adjustments to the February issue. He worked late into the afternoon before handing it over to the art directors. As before, Yuuri stayed behind, waiting for everyone to finish working on it before taking it to Victor’s apartment for the next edit. The first assistant left the second one to deal with it.

Yuuri went up in the elevator, feeling the weight of the key in his pocket. His heart beat quickly in his chest as he wondered what sort of a welcome awaited him.

The lock clicked loudly, echoing in the hallway and making him jump. He swung the door open as quietly as possible before stepping inside.

Maybe he could leave the Book without being noticed. Maybe nothing would happen and things would go back to the way they’d been.

He lowered the Book onto the table in the hallway as soundlessly as he could.

The day had gone by normally, or what he would’ve called “normally” before he slept with Victor for the first time: Victor sent him around on errands that never seemed to end and barely said two words about anything else to him.

Yuuri turned and made for the door, clutching the key so tightly, it dug painfully into his hand.

The sound of slow, measured footsteps made him turn.

Victor stood in the doorway. He smiled and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything Yuuri crossed the room and embraced him.

“I missed you,” he admitted and felt Victor return the hug.

“So did I,” the editor confessed, burying his face in Yuuri’s hair. “Will you take care of me?” He pulled away and looked into Yuuri’s face.

Yuuri stared up into his eyes. He pulled his glasses off and placed them on the table nearby. “Yes,” he whispered emphatically and reached up for a kiss.

The words he’d meant to say hung in the air again, but did they need to be said?

_I’ve been miserable while you were away,_ Yuuri thought. _I belong by your side. I want to be at your side, no matter what happens._

 

Yuuri was there, eager and passionate, and Victor let himself go. He was at home. He could do whatever he liked. He was perfectly in control. Everything was fine.

And so no one saw him surrender, pleading weakly for more. No one was there to see Yuuri get carried away and let his mouth roam over Victor’s body. No one was there to see how red his face was when Yuuri came. No one knew his thoughts, thoughts he was embarrassed of later, but he permitted them then, or how he grabbed Yuuri’s hands and slid them over his own body, moaning at the touch.

“Victor…” Yuuri gasped and Victor released his hands.

_I missed this, all of this._ He turned and caught Yuuri, trapping him in a kiss.

He could feel Yuuri’s heart hammering against his own, released his lips and Yuuri gasped his name again and again.

“My dear Yuuri…” he whispered in return.

And who cared if he was drenched in sweat, or that he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Yuuri, or that their legs were tangled around each other, thighs rubbing against thighs?

Yuuri’s lips were seeking out every inch of Victor’s skin a second time and Victor surrendered again, wishing desperately for a third and fourth time.

Later they lay side by side on their backs and Victor held Yuuri’s hand between both of his, clutching it to his heart. “It was cold in St. Petersburg,” he said. “Much colder than in New York.”

Yuuri sat up on his side and fiddled with Victor’s hair.

Victor looked up into Yuuri’s face and wondered if he’d been uppermost in Yuuri’s mind, like the boy had been in his.

But he’d waited. He’d missed him.

“Kiss me,” he said and Yuuri reached down obediently.

Yuuri had come to him, even though Victor hadn’t said anything. Once again Yuuri guessed what he’d wanted and granted his wish.

Victor pulled Yuuri closer, gripping his shoulders tightly. He felt the boy’s tongue in his mouth and slid his hands down.

_I missed you. Oh God, how I’ve missed you!_

Yuuri broke the kiss and pulled away. His face was flushed, but he had that smile of pure joy that Victor rarely ever saw.

“I was worried you...” he stumbled, but kept going, “...wouldn’t want to... see me anymore. If it hadn’t been for the Book...”

The Book. He had to go through it. He had to make sure they’d understood his comments. He had to mark it up all over again and find every mistake.

But Yuuri was there, naked and on top of him. He had that happy smile that was only an inch away from a playful one.

He could wait until the morning. He could wait until Yuuri fell asleep. He could...

He could get up now and finish it.

Victor moved Yuuri gently off himself. “I need to go through the Book,” he said. “I suspect they didn’t understand all of my instructions.”

Yuuri watched him climb out of the bed with a bewildered look on his face.

“I’ll be done soon,” Victor promised, wrapping himself up in his dressing gown and then he left.

He spent half the night going over the same pages time and again, trying to decide on the best changes to make. He knew he wouldn’t sleep until he got them right.

It was 6 am when he finished. There was no point in going to bed now. And he didn’t want to sleep anyway.

He stood up and made for his closet. He paused halfway down the hall, feeling as if he’d forgotten something important and then his eye fell on his bedroom door.

Yuuri! He’d let himself get so carried away, he’d forgotten all about Yuuri!

Victor returned to the bedroom, where Yuuri slept in his bed.

Maybe a little bit. Maybe just half an hour.

He tossed his dressing gown aside and slipped under the blankets next to Yuuri. He pulled the boy close and fell asleep almost right away.

 

Someone kissed his face gently and his eyelids fluttered as the usual existential questions flooded his brain. _Where am I? What day is it? What time is it?_

Victor’s eyes opened and he saw Yuuri leaning over him. “What time is it?”

“9 o’clock,” Yuuri answered. “I wasn’t sure if –”

“9 o’clock!” Victor sat up. “Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?”

Yuuri slid away. There was that slightly terrified look on his face Victor had seen before. “I didn’t want to... I wasn’t sure... You went to sleep late so I thought...”

Victor slid his hands across the bed and caught Yuuri’s.

“Let me dress you again,” Victor said.

Yuuri nodded and Victor raised a hand to pull his fingers through his hair.

“I missed you,” he said.

Yuuri leaned forward, but Victor pulled away and stood up. “It’s late. We need to go to work. We should’ve been there two hours ago.”

 

Victor sent Yuuri ahead so he could deliver the Book and fetch his coffee in preparation for Victor’s morning meeting with the art directors and the people in charge of the layout.

Yuuri entered the Elias-Clarke building, his head full of Victor’s moans from the previous night. They’d temporarily banished his fears about Victor leaving him. He remembered how hard Victor’s heart beat against his chest when the editor embraced him. Yuuri put his fingers against Victor’s handkerchief in his pocket. If Victor had asked him to flatten a mountain that morning, Yuuri would’ve done it without question.

“Who is that?” Yuuri heard someone whisper to someone else just behind him. “He’s cute.”

“Haven’t you heard about him and Victor?”

“No, what is it?”

Yuuri crossed the lobby, suddenly aware how far it was from the front door to the elevators, keeping his eyes focused ahead the whole time and feeling the blood rush to his face.

Everyone in the lobby was turning around and whispering.

_I’m almost there. Only a couple more steps._ He could feel the tears well up in his eyes and bit his lip.

But the elevator brought no protection from other people: five more people got on at the same time as him and all of them kept their eyes on his face. The silence hung heavily over his head and he kept his eyes on the display as the numbers changed slowly to show the elevator’s progress to the top floor.

Several people got off part of the way up and more people got on. There was no escape. He felt like an exhibit on display or an animal at the zoo.

Maybe it would all blow over. He just needed to wait for a little bit longer and they’d find something else to gossip about. It would be fine, he told himself. It was just gossip. As long as he kept himself under control, everything would be fine.

When he got to the top floor he discovered that Victor had somehow gotten there first. Yuuri headed straight for Victor’s office without even stopping at his own desk, without even looking at the first assistant.

He opened the door and almost immediately Victor dumped a surprise on him.

“I’m going to a horse race next month and I want you to come with me.”

_Horse race? Why would the editor of a fashion magazine need to go to a horse race?_ The question must’ve appeared on his face, because Victor smiled and said:

“A friend of mine organizes this one every year and I always go.”

_So would I go as your date or as your assistant?_ Yuuri wondered.

The answer, as it turned out, was both. But Yuuri didn’t find that out until he was already there. Until it was already too late.

 

Thoughts about the horse race had to be pushed to the side, however. It was mid-January and, as Yuri put it, there were _only_ two months left until Paris Fashion Week.

Suddenly it was all about Paris. No other city was mentioned with such frequency within the walls of the Elias-Clarke building. No other name was whispered so passionately.

Paris!

There were models ready to sell their souls for a chance to go to Paris. Yuuri spent several hours every day dodging and avoiding desperate models. They tried to corner him in all parts of the building. They tried to catch him by the arms. One model even promised to kill herself. They begged, threatened, pleaded, cried. Two models tried to kiss him and one tried the old honey trap trick in an attempt to catch a compromising photo.

_“– there is that store that has the most amazing –”_

Yuuri was learning French. He was actually learning French and practicing with Chris!

And Yuuri remembered that this was Yuri’s first trip there. This had been the ultimate perk, the big prize awarded to first assistants who had been on their best behaviour all year.

It hadn’t surprised Yuuri in the slightest that Chris was fluent in French. As it turned out, so was Victor. Yuuri learned that when Victor dropped in on one practice session and joined the conversation.

_“– and don’t forget Victor’s favourite restaurant in Paris –”_

Yuuri listened to the first assistant talk, watched him put together Victor’s schedule, confirming and re-confirming appointments with everyone and their drivers and realized he didn’t have the smallest desire to go.

_You aren’t going,_ his brain reminded him. _You’re just the second assistant. You’re not going. You’re not important enough._

He really didn’t want to go.

He belonged by Victor’s side. That he knew with the same certainty that he knew that the Earth revolved around the Sun. But he didn’t want to go to Paris. Not for Fashion Week, anyway.

_“– everything there is the best. Everything! You know, they practically invented –”_

He ran around, carrying out his usual errands, helping Yuri arrange everything for Paris, helping prepare the models who were actually going. Victor was back, but they barely saw each other. There were always a million errands to run, so many things to take care of, and no time to stop for breath, let alone food or a chat.

He got used to seeing two Victors and learned to think of him as two separate people. One was an unforgiving employer who was hard to satisfy and one was a surrendering lover who was much easier to satisfy.

_“– but the best thing about Paris, the thing you absolutely_ must _see is –”_

Yuuri could feel metaphorical clouds gathering over his head.

When would the metaphorical lightning strike? When would the downpour start?

Victor kept changing his mind about his plans and had no hesitations about discussing them with Yuuri while they had sex.

_How do I get him to stop? Oh God, how do I get him to stop?_

He tried to keep the editor’s attention on himself, but he didn’t succeed for long. He’d run his hands over Victor, making the editor gasp and moan, but how long could he keep it up for?

And always, _always_ , Victor lay on his side afterwards and spoke dreamily about Paris, as if it wasn’t a city, but a fond memory.

_“– it’s the most beautiful city in the world! It really is! –”_

Somehow everyone had caught the Paris disease. Everyone but him.

_“– It’s impossible not to fall in love with it.”_

 

Yuuri clung on tightly in his sleep. He gave Victor more every night. He had Victor weak and begging him not to stop. Victor surrendered willingly, enjoying every second between Yuuri’s thighs and feeling terrible for it.

The boy had a complete hold over him. He could have everything he wanted.

And Victor waited for a request. They’d been together long enough. Surely Yuuri knew he could have anything in the world?

Maybe he was too shy to ask. Maybe it was up to Victor to anticipate his wishes. And so he thought about Yuuri riding him harder, clinging to him tighter and kissing him deeper and then he had it.

He knew what he could give him.

 

It was the day before they were due to leave for the horse race when the editor sprang another surprise on his second assistant.

“Yuuri, there you are!” He said the moment Yuuri walked into his office. “I just talked to Yakov. I’m going to take both of my assistants.”

“B-both?” Yuuri repeated.

“Yes. I’ll need more people to help me this year in Paris. Yuri alone won’t be enough.”

“Paris?” Yuuri echoed dumbly.

_Why? I thought he only took one assistant. The way Yuri talked about it, it was the greatest blessing in the universe to go there with Victor. Oh God! Does that mean... Does that mean that our affair is about to become public knowledge?_

That was one thought he wasn’t ready for. It was bad enough to hear people whispering about it in every corner of the Elias-Clarke building, but to have his private life discussed in the gossip columns of published magazines!

“Thank you,” he stammered out, not knowing what else he could possibly say and returned to his desk.

Yuri glared at him from his spot. “You think this is funny?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not stupid! I know what ‘I need more assistants’ means! You’ll be sleeping with him and going to all of the expensive and fashionable places with him while I run around and do all the work!”

“Yuri, please –”

“No,” Yuri cut in. “I thought you were sleeping with him because he manipulated you into it somehow... Actually, I tried my hardest not to imagine how the hell that happened. I didn’t realize you wanted a free ticket to Paris so badly you’d do something as dirty as that to get it!”

“F-free ticket?” Yuuri exclaimed in shock.

“Yes!”

“You think...” Yuuri swallowed. “You think this is about going to Paris?”

“What is it, then?”

Yuuri turned away. “I can’t say it.”

“Sure. Yeah. Whatever.” Yuri rolled his eyes. “You keep going on about conditioning, or whatever. Let’s just get one thing straight: I’m _Victor’s_ assistant, not yours! I won’t wait on you! You will get your own coffee, or whatever. Got it? I’m the _first_ assistant and you’re the _second_ one. Got it?”

Yuuri nodded, at a complete loss for words.

“Good. Now go talk to Chris about your clothes.”

“Clothes?”

“Yes. You don’t plan on wearing the same thing every day during your trip there, do you?”

Yuuri knew the answer to this one. “Of course not!”

“Good. So: go.” He pointed at the door and resumed typing.

Yuuri walked out in a daze. _At least I’ll be with Victor_ , he thought. For some reason this thought didn’t make him feel any better.

 

Chris greeted him with a meaningful look above his glasses the moment Yuuri stepped into his office. “Victor asked me to arrange for something for you to wear while you’re gone,” he told Yuuri. “So I threw together several things last minute.”

He handed Yuuri a small notebook. It was full of photos with labels.

“I have here,” Chris said, flipping through the pages and pointing at the pictures, “the outfit for the race, your dinner outfits, your lunch outfits,” he went on as Yuuri stared in surprise.

“The outfit for the race gave me the hardest time, of course,” Chris said, returning to the main page. “I had to decide what to go for. Tweed is back in, of course, but I thought I’d go for a look that…”

He stopped, remembering who he was talking to, and smiled. He went on, translating to the Yuuri Katsuki dictionary of fashion. “I wanted something new and original. Luckily, your _best friend_ had the answer in the new issue.”

Yuuri paled. “What?”

Chris pulled the recent edition of _Runway_ out of his desk and flipped to the right page.

Yuuri stared at the photo in dumb silence for several seconds before saying, “I wore that when Victor and I went to the opera.”

He regretted the words as soon as they left his lips: Chris’s expression was that of a person just told that the city was about to be hit by a hurricane.

“That won’t do at all!” Chris exclaimed.

“Do you think he’ll rem –” Yuuri sighed. Of course he would. He was Victor freaking Nikiforov. He would remember what underwear Yuuri wore each time they slept together.

Yuuri had no choice but to wait for Chris to put together something new while he went through the book of outfits he’d prepared.

There were 60 pages in it and Yuuri found to his great embarrassment that the outfits included what underwear he needed to wear. He tried not to think about that, or that Chris had several separate pages dedicated solely to lingerie, all with a rating, based on how sexy Chris considered them to be.

Yuuri took one look at the one with the highest rating and closed the book. He wished he could forget the images his brain generated afterwards.

 

Yuuri’s first impressions of the race had surprisingly few horses. And the only horses were those mentioned in conversation. Pretty soon it turned out that anyone who was anyone was interested in the outcome of the race, as if the horse that won would decide the future of mankind.

It was packed with people, but this wasn’t the mindless mass that in its curiosity trampled down the very thing it was trying to see. The people were there to show that they were there, and that they looked their best when they did so. Even the press and photographers were keeping a respectful distance.

As always, Victor knew at least half of the crowd and struck up polite conversations with several people, much of them the same as those Yuuri had seen before, as if they travelled from event to event together. It seemed to Yuuri as if the whole world of fashion was there and, thanks to the Christmas party, he now knew most of them by name. The thought of the Christmas party made his stomach turn and he stopped to stare down at his feet.

He could leave. He could just turn around and leave and…

He felt Victor’s hand on his back and raised his eyes.

“Yuuri?” Yuuri forced a smile. “Let’s take our seats,” Victor said and took his hand away.

They sat next to each other and Yuuri was suddenly aware of the fact that Victor’s attention was focused on him. He kept his eyes on his knees and tried not to fidget.

“Chris found a good look for you,” Victor said quietly and Yuuri blushed.

Victor took his hands and gave them a squeeze.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” the announcer’s voice boomed over the speakers. “Welcome to the 120th –”

Yuuri thought of the flight, of how Victor and he had sat in two different rows until Victor gave one of the flight attendants a dressing down. Yuuri could still remember the traumatized look on her face when she asked him to switch seats. Victor then spent the rest of the flight with his head on Yuuri’s shoulder, going through a list of tasks. He was Victor’s second assistant in the car ride that followed and until they checked in, when Yuuri had to take care of all of the details, but then they were handed the keys for a shared room and Victor’s assistant became Victor’s date for the race.

 

_Victor took a hot bath while Yuuri sat on the bed._

_“Yuuri!” Victor called._

_He walked up to the door. “Yes?”_

_“Come in. I don’t like shouting through a door.”_

_So he came in. And he took in the sight of Victor reclining in the bathtub. And he turned away. “Y-yes?”_

_“Put me through to Yuri. I need to talk to him.”_

_He called the first assistant and handed Victor his phone without another word._

_Victor caught Yuuri’s hand as he took the phone. “Stay,” he ordered._

_And Yuuri stayed._

_He did his best not to listen in on Victor’s conversation with Yuri. And then the realization hit him that Victor hadn’t wanted to talk to Yuri at all. He was just using it as an excuse to get Yuuri in the bathroom with him._

_“That’s all,” Victor said and hung up._

_Yuuri wrapped his arms around Victor. He sat down behind the bathtub and pressed his lips against the editor’s neck. Then he tilted his face so that his nose, and then his forehead were pressed against Victor._

_“Take your clothes off and join me,” Victor whispered._

 

Victor’s thumbs slid over Yuuri’s hands, bringing him back to the present.

“What are you thinking about?”

Yuuri’s list of worries could almost rival Victor’s Christmas list at this point. They started from worries about the rumours that would be going around when he came home and ended with his thoughts about his friendship, if it could be called that, with Yuri. But in that minute his mind was too full of the memories of the bath the previous evening.

“You,” he whispered, blushing.

Victor shifted closer.

The announcer finally got through his speech and the race began.

The race consisted of several preliminary races and then one final race to determine the winner. As the race went on Yuuri felt himself drawn further in.

There was a horse competing for the first time and it won every race, winning over the audience’s sympathy. As each new race started with that horse amongst the others the audience chanted his name.

“Lucky Day! Lucky Day!”

And then came the final race.

Yuuri felt himself get swept away in the general excitement and worried for Lucky Day as if he’d bet his entire fortune on him winning the race. Unable to stop himself, he shouted words of encouragement. It wasn’t as if the jockey would hear him, but he went ahead and did it anyway.

“Go Lucky Day!”

The horses were nearing the finish line and Yuuri resisted the urge to rise to his feet and cheer. And just as Lucky Day’s front foot crossed the finish line way ahead of everyone else Victor turned and caught Yuuri’s mouth in a kiss.

There were excited cheers from the audience as they applauded the winner. Yuuri sat with his mouth half open, feeling Victor’s lips pressed against his. The editor’s hands grabbed him by the shoulders, as if he was afraid Yuuri would pull away.

And Yuuri closed his eyes and responded. Caught in the excitement of the race, he forgot about the thousands of people around them and focused entirely on the man sitting next to him.

Several cameramen turned and caught what became the year’s most sensational kiss.

 

Suddenly every single paper was interested in him, but all of them for the wrong reason. Yuuri got tired of turning down requests for interviews fairly quickly and swore to himself that if he ever became a journalist, he’d never be that annoying.

_If he ever became a journalist…_

He avoided all of the press, which was a hard thing to do at the race, especially since Victor attracted the press like a magnet. But this time even the editor didn’t want to answer any of their questions. When Yuuri got back he avoided seeing Phichit (until he was ready for that conversation, at least). He merely went straight from Victor’s apartment to work.

But Fate found a way to deal him a blow.

He arrived early and by Victor’s side, the two of them still acting as if nothing had happened. Victor disappeared into his office just as Yuuri took his seat.

They’d arrived before the flowers this time, but Victor didn’t seem to notice.

Yuuri sighed and covered his face with his hands, trying his best not to imagine what Yuri would say.

Ten minutes of sour thoughts weren’t enough to prepare Yuuri for when it happened.

“So who is Yuuri Katsuki?” Yuri exclaimed, barging into the office and throwing a newspaper down before him. “It seems that no one _really_ knows. No one at _Runway_ properly knows! Now I see what you meant: this wasn’t about going to Paris at all!”

Yuuri stared down at the article and then up at Yuri before his eyes dropped to the picture again. He resisted the urge to back away.

No. It wasn’t possible.

It was too soon. He wasn’t ready.

A photo of him and Phichit took up half a page next to a photo of his and Victor’s kiss at the horse race.

_Who is Victor Nikiforov’s New Muse?_ the headline read and right below it in bold letters it read: _The Spy Who Kissed Me_.

The truth was out.

Yuuri raised his eyes from the article.

The first assistant rewarded the second assistant with a big slap on the face.


	19. Not About Paris

Betrayed! They’d all been betrayed! And too late he found the traitor in their midst!

The traitorous bastard had slipped into their confidence like, like… like a _snake_!

Yuri felt disgusted just looking at him. And glaring didn’t help, for some reason.

“Well?” Yuri demanded. “Are you going to tell me that this photo is fake?”

“This photo is from New Year’s eve,” Yuuri said quietly. “Phichit invited me to a party.” He gave Yuri a defiant look, daring him to hit him again. “Phichit is my best friend. Has been since we were in school.”

“So you admit it!” Yuri exclaimed triumphantly.

“When I got this job,” Yuuri said calmly, “I didn’t know he was the editor of _Fantastic Man_ or even that _Fantastic Man_ and _Runway_ were rivals.”

“As if I will believe that!” All a lie! The fake innocence! The pretend incompetence! He should’ve known! As if anyone could _really_ be that clueless when it came to fashion!

Yuuri gave him an unblinking stare. “You don’t have to believe me,” he said. “This all happened by accident. I wanted a journalism job, not this one.”

The first assistant gave him a look of disgust.

Chris rushed in before either of them could think of anything more to say. He froze in the doorway, threw a look at the second assistant, then the first one and finally at the newspaper article on the table between them.

“I wanted to tell you, Yuuri,” Chris began, walking up to him at a much slower pace.

Yuuri smiled at him. “Thank you.” He rose to his feet. “Yuri doesn’t believe me when I tell him that it’s a coincidence.”

Chris put an arm around Yuri’s shoulders.

Yuri swung his shoulder and threw Chris’s arm off. “You believe him?” He narrowed his eyes. “Are you working for _Fantastic Man_ too?”

“Listen to yourself, Yuri,” Chris said. “I’ve known Victor since we were teenagers. Why would I be spying for his rival?”

“Phichit is not his rival!” Yuuri exclaimed. “ _Runway_ had a fight with his predecessor. Phichit only wants to end the rivalry!”

“That’s _exactly_ what his friend would say!” the first assistant snapped back.

“I trust Yuuri,” Chris said. “If you think about it, you’ll see that he can’t possibly be lying.”

“How? How do you see that?” Yuri demanded.

But he didn’t wait for them to come up with any more lies. He wasn’t going to stand for this. He was going to demand that – no, not demand, he was going to march into Victor’s office and denounce the filthy traitor himself!

Yuri barged into Victor’s office, not caring whether the other two men were following him or not.

Victor raised his eyes from the paper in front of him. Somewhere on some subconscious level Yuri registered the stack of papers at the corner of his desk. The editor gave his first assistant a cold look.

Yuri froze to the spot and realized he had absolutely no idea how he could possibly break to his boss that the man he was sleeping with, who was also his second assistant, was in actual fact best friends with his rival and had been betraying him all this time.

The man would demand proof and in his anger Yuri had left the article on the table.

He opened his mouth and his mind started putting together an apology, running completely on automatic.

“I’ll tell him,” Yuuri said quietly, putting a hand on his shoulder and stepping forward.

Yuri wanted to scream, call the man every single bad word in existence and then maybe punch him a few times. Suddenly it didn’t matter that he was in Victor’s office, or that he’d always tried to maintain some appearance of dignity at work. His hands tightened into fists, but he kept quiet, waiting to see what Yuuri would do.

“Victor, there’s something I need to tell you,” Yuuri said meekly.

Chris put an arm on Yuri’s shoulder and the first assistant realized he was shaking from the effort of keeping all of his anger in check.

“Is something wrong?” Victor looked at them all in turn.

Something seeped in through Yuri’s skin, into his chest, turned a crank and Yuri could feel his mouth forming the words “no, Victor, nothing is wrong; everything is just fine”. He bit them down.

Then he looked at Yuuri. He could see the second assistant facing the same struggle.

“Sort of,” he finally managed to say.

“Then sort it out,” Victor said, returning to the paper in front of him.

“You need to know this,” Yuuri insisted while the first assistant felt his legs prepare to take him out of the office.

“Does it have anything to do with Paris?” Victor asked, still working away on the sketch.

“No,” Yuuri admitted.

“Then it can wait.” He raised his eyes and looked at both of his assistants in turn. His eyes were cold. “Can’t you sort it out amongst yourselves?”

“U-um…” Yuuri stuttered.

“Or is that too much to ask?”

“We’ll sort it out,” Yuri promised, surprising himself.

“That’s all.” Victor gave a cold smile and returned to his drawing.

Everyone walked out of the office, closing the door behind them and exchanging looks of shock.

Conditioned. Oh God, they really had all been conditioned!

“That stuff you said about conditioning,” Yuri began slowly, as if trying out the sound of the words on his tongue, “can you say it again?”

Yuuri repeated his words and then he told his story, of how he’d taken the job, not knowing about Phichit or the rivalry. And Yuri listened. It was odd and full of strange coincidences, but – in a way – it worked. He turned to look at Chris as soon as Yuuri finished.

“I believe him,” Chris said, answering the question in Yuri’s eyes.

Yuri remembered standing near Phichit at the Christmas party, wishing he could strangle the man (while Otabek did his best to calm him down) and listening to him talk. Now he allowed himself to think about what he’d refused to admit back then: the editor of _Fantastic Man_ was quite likeable. In fact, hating him had taken every ounce of Yuri’s effort.

And then he realized his biggest fear: he’d spent so much time looking for the right second assistant and he’d been so relieved when Yuuri demonstrated that he could actually do the job that he really didn’t want to go through that all over again. And he said so. Aloud, unfortunately.

Yuuri thanked him as if he’d been handed an award.

But the biggest argument in Yuuri’s favour was simpler than that: Yuri liked Yuuri. In their time together, he’d actually learned to like the man, even if his utter lack of a sense of fashion and affair with Victor meant that Yuri couldn’t respect him.

He’d never admit it, of course, but Yuri realized he’d made a friend.

Chris and Yuuri watched him digest everything.

Finally Yuri gave a nod. “Fine,” he said, “I believe you.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“But what about Victor?” Chris asked. “Who’s going to tell him?”

“I’ll do it,” Yuuri said. “I’ll find a good moment and do it. He needs to hear it from me, anyway.”

“But what about…” Yuri paused, trying to find the right words. “You’re not going to _stay with him_ , are you?”

Yuuri turned away. “I don’t know.”

_Oh God, he means ‘yes’._ “Are you out of your mind?”

There was a sad smile on Yuuri’s face as he turned back around to face them. “Probably.”

Yuri looked at Chris. _You’re always talking to him. Why don’t you tell him he’s crazy?_

Chris was frowning.

Yuri had always worshipped Victor, but that is not to say that he thought of him as perfect. He knew Victor had flaws, but he considered them to be excusable. To him, a legend like Victor had every right to be that demanding. But now he was like a man who’d seen what he took for a perfect statue from another angle: he became very aware of Victor’s flaws.

Victor wasn’t just demanding. He saw his employees like tools in a box. Every tool had its function and when it was required he needed it to be there in its spot, ready for him to pick up and use. The fact that these so-called tools were actually people with their own lives didn’t seem to occur to him.

He watched Yuuri run around on his usual errands, watched the looks Victor threw at him and watched the way Yuuri looked at his boss and came to a frightening conclusion.

Whatever Victor felt, it wasn’t love. Not by Yuri’s definition, anyway.

It was one thing when Chris pushed them both aside after Yuuri’s “probably”, marched into Victor’s office with the words “I need to tell you something about Yuuri” and was dismissed right away.

It was quite another thing when Victor, tired of people walking into his office and starting a conversation with Yuuri’s name, barged out of the office into the curious crowd that stood there, and exclaimed, “Yes, Yuuri and I are having an affair! But, last I checked, this didn’t give anyone an excuse to not do their work and, since I know that you all have jobs to do, I expect all of you to go and do them!”

He stood with his arms crossed, waiting for everyone to leave while Yuri watched the second assistant shrink into his seat.

_God, I wish he_ was _spying for_ Fantastic Man _!_

He saw Yuuri’s lips tremble and sent an urgent text to Mila.

As soon as she arrived Yuri grabbed the second assistant, told her they had to take care of something important and dragged him away to the bathroom, leaving her to man the desk.

“Y-you don’t have to…” Yuuri whispered as soon as the bathroom door closed behind them, turning away and trying to hide the tears that came to his eyes.

“Listen, I’m not going to lecture you,” Yuri went on. “I just don’t want you sitting there and blubbering like–”

Yuuri turned around and caught him in an embrace.

“Oy! You’re going to get…” he sighed, “…my shirt wet,” he finished half-heartedly. He raised a hand and patted Yuuri on the back. “You need to leave, Yuuri. You need to quit and find another job.”

“But what about you?” The second assistant pulled away and wiped his face with Victor’s handkerchief.

Yuri gritted his teeth. “What _about_ me? I’m used to being treated like crap. I can handle it.”

“But you’ll have to go through the whole hiring process again,” Yuuri whispered. “I might be barely adequate, but… Oh, who am I kidding? There are lots of people who would be better at this job than me.”

“Don’t be so harsh on yourself. You’re the most competent person we’ve ever had in this position.” Yuri considered those words. “Except for me, of course.”

Yuuri sighed, pulled his glasses off and wiped his eyes with the handkerchief. The first assistant studied him properly for the first time in a long while.

In his few months in this job he’d lost a ton of weight, gained permanent dark circles under his eyes and somehow settled into a defeated look. Gone was the man who’d arrived on the first day and insisted hotly that he was a quick learner.

_You really are,_ Yuri thought. _And you’ve learned this all too well._ “Listen, I don’t want anyone to kill themselves just because they thought they were doing me a favour, got it?”

Yuuri nodded. “Alright.”

“Good. Now wash your face. I’ll see you back at the desk.” He left, too angry for any more words.

Victor should’ve been there in his place, making Yuuri feel better and wiping his tears away.

_I swear to God, Beka, if you ever make me cry like this, you and I are through!_ He froze the moment the thought crossed his mind. _What the hell? Where did that come from?_ He walked on, pretending he hadn’t thought about anything at all, but a certain idea formed in his mind and he couldn’t get rid of it.

When he returned to his desk he found the press trying to break into Victor’s office. They turned as soon as the second assistant showed up and launched an attack on him instead.

But before they could do any damage the first assistant called in security and had them all escorted out of the building.

The second assistant gave him a grateful look.

_We can deal with this._ The first assistant wrote on a piece of paper and held it up for the second assistant to read.

Unfortunately the press refused to give in that easily and kept coming back.

Victor locked himself away in his office in response to this onslaught with the announcement that he refused to see anyone who wasn’t there to talk about Fashion Week. Any attempts to start a conversation with “There is something you need to know” or “I need to tell you something important” were shut down as soon as the speaker admitted that the conversation that followed wouldn’t be about Paris. Once someone tried to lie, but as soon as Yuuri’s name appeared in the sentence, Victor dismissed them with,

“Yes, Yuuri is coming with me. Don’t waste my time arguing.”

Yuri witnessed all of this, his eyes on the second assistant. _And you still want to go out with this guy?_

 

They whispered about Yuuri in the halls. They whispered about him on the street. They went on whispering in cafés, stores, restaurants, even the bathrooms in the Elias-Clarke building. The whispers followed him everywhere he went.

The reporters tried the same following trick until he thought of threatening them in Victor’s name.

And it worked.

Victor’s reputation was probably ruined (Yuuri still wasn’t sure about this), but any threats he supposedly issued to the effect of shutting down publications still had the desired effect.

So the press found a more willing target and Yuuri was shocked to find interviews with Phichit published everywhere. He read one at random only to discover that it was full of nonsense.

It brought a rare smile to his face.

His friend was still looking out for him.

A year ago he wouldn’t have stood for this. A year ago he would’ve rebelled, quit, _done something_. Not walked around, resigned to his fate.

He wouldn’t have tolerated someone interrupting his every attempt to tell the truth to give him supposedly urgent assignments.

But matters improved as time went by. Chris had been on his side from the beginning and they’d both been amazed by how quickly Yuri changed his mind and sided with Yuuri. And slowly, one way or another, the people of _Runway_ started to treat Yuuri differently.

Mila would bring him lunch, claiming that she’d accidentally bought an extra portion. The models left him in peace and didn’t bother him with requests to get them into Fashion Week. Some, like Sara, would randomly hug him if they met in the halls. The whispers died down. He wondered if Yuri or Chris were behind any of this, but didn’t know how to ask.

Now he had to put up with everyone’s pity.

_If I ever get out of here_ , he thought. _I swear I’ll never come back. No matter what happens, I’ll never set foot inside this building._

Sometimes when a tyrant comes to power people push each other out of the way just to worm themselves into a cozy position of influence. They betray each other, to the point of backstabbing their closest friends. And, sometimes, they unite against him.

But rebellions are rare. It takes a lot of things to go wrong all at once before a revolution happens. And the people of _Runway_ didn’t rebel. No, they merely reached out for each other.

It started with the little things they did for Yuuri until someone had the bright idea of doing it for someone else. It wasn’t just anyone. It was Yuuri himself.

“He just left,” Yuuri told the first assistant over the phone. “I thought I’d warn you so you could tell the others, because he’s in a foul mood this morning. I don’t know why.” He sighed. “It’s probably my fault.”

“Don’t be an idiot! Of course it’s not your fault!” Yuri said. “Ok. I’ll deal with things on this end. You go get the coffee. Better make that two coffees, just to be safe.”

“Ok.”

Yuri hung up with, “And we’re doing the run through today. Great.”

“What’s that?” Chris asked, walking in.

“Victor’s in a bad mood and the first final run through is today.” In theory, it should’ve been the final run through, but since it inevitably led to more run throughs, it was called the first final run through by pretty much everyone.

“You know what they say,” Chris remarked, turning around to leave and pass the message along to everyone else, “needs must when the devil drives.”

 

How was he supposed to work with all these distractions? Why was everyone so hung up on his affair with Yuuri? Hadn’t they ever heard of affairs in the office before? Was it really _that_ surprising? The incessant racket was making it hard to focus. He was seriously considering firing the next person to bring up his affair with Yuuri.

And he had the worst headache in existence!

Yuuri came into his office with two coffees and Victor smiled. Trust his second assistant to be the only one to do his job properly.

“I want you by my side today,” Victor said. It was going to be one of those days, he already knew it.

Yuuri nodded.

“Come here.”

His assistant walked up to his desk.

“No, no,” he said impatiently, “here.”

Yuuri circled the desk. Victor kissed him. “You have that look,” he whispered, pulling away.

“Wh-what look?”

“The ‘I want to be kissed’ look.” He hadn’t, but Victor could no longer resist the temptation to kiss his assistant. And what did it matter if someone saw? Everyone knew about them anyway.

Yuuri lowered his eyes.

“Tell me honestly,” he whispered, “they’re not ready, are they?”

“What? Oh! Of course they are!”

“Only one way to find out.” He rose from his seat and walked out of the office.

He braced himself for another noisy crowd outside his office, but found nothing and then he realized what his biggest fear was: finding out that nothing was ready.

He’d heard about the collection the editor of _Fantastic Man_ was putting together. They said it was going to be his best collection yet. He couldn’t sleep at all the whole week. He lay awake thinking how he could make his own collection better. He’d even started to design a bunch of new pieces only to remember all too late how long it took his staff to put things together based on his sketches.

He’d have to leave it for the next issue, then.

He needed to go over the collection thoroughly. Maybe he could make some critical adjustments that would change everything. He refused to be beat by the editor of _Fantastic Man_. No matter what it took he would have the better collection. The gender of the person it was designed for was a minor detail. Paris was his chance to show who was truly the best.

 

Like before the horse race, the day before they were due to leave for Paris Yuuri got a notebook of outfits and a talk from Chris. This time it happened in the Wardrobe with several other beauty editors present.

There were more outfits at Yuuri’s disposal for this trip and it wasn’t just Chris who put them together either. The art director explained that he got an assistant to compile the outfits he and the beauty editors had designed into a notebook and Yuuri marvelled at how organized the whole thing was. It was sorted by activities and further split between formal and semi-formal. It had everything from dinner outfits, to sports clothes, to –

Yuuri stared at the page in shock as the blood rushed to his face.

“The assistant seemed to think that showing some initiative was a good idea,” Chris said.

Yuuri flipped the page and, sure enough, there was a formal and semi-formal version. _What the hell?_

Chris shrugged. “I tried to tell him it was a bad idea, but –”

He knew that his affair with Victor was out in the open. Hell, his friendship with Phichit had also become public knowledge and it was only some mad joke on life’s part that kept Victor from finding out. But…

The assistant had actually sat down and put together outfits for, as the caption called it, “a private evening with a lover,” and then further subdivided it based on some strange definition of formality not realizing how insane it sounded. Or, maybe, he thought it depended on your relationship with your lover. Out of curiosity, Yuuri flipped back and forth, comparing the two outfits. The formal version included gloves and, as far as Yuuri could see, that was the only difference. Even the boots were identical.

There certainly were a lot of straps. It was like wearing a giant fishnet over the whole body. How did anyone put something like this on, or take it off? Someone added gemstones in the oddest places and…

Yuuri closed the notebook. “Thank you,” he said dryly. _That assistant is completely insane!_

The other beauty editors called in a couple of male models, which modelled the outfits designed for Yuuri. He stood and watched them turn around on the spot. They actually got models to show him how to wear his outfits! Yuuri stared, not knowing if he should be more shocked by this or the outfit the assistant had put together for him.

“You’ll have one or two stylists at your disposal,” Chris went on, as if it was just a casual conversation. And then he leaned close to him. “Listen,” he said whispered into his ear, “this is your chance to sit down and have a proper talk with Victor. I know he’s really focused on Fashion Week right now, but you should be able to find a good moment in Paris.”

He was still so scarred by that outfit that it took time for bits of what Chris said to sink in. “S-Stylists?” Why was he getting a mental image of people helping him into that outfit for a private evening with Victor? Why?

“Yes,” Chris said with a nod. “You will be representing _Runway_ at a _fashion event_.”

_I think I’m going to be sick._

Chris went on. Maybe he missed the expression on Yuuri’s face. Maybe he thought Yuuri would get over it. He went on about the outfit the model was currently demonstrating.

Yuuri tried to feign interest, but it was hard. He lowered his eyes.

Suddenly he felt the art director’s hand on his back and looked up into his face.

“Are you, okay?”

“Take these outfits out,” Yuuri whispered, flipping to the page with the outfit that bothered him so much. “I… It’s… Just take it out. I’m not going to wear this.”

Chris nodded. “Alright. In exchange you have to promise to talk to Victor. You need to sort this out, Yuuri, before it finds a way to turn around and blow up in your face.”

 

Phichit went over the run through again and sighed. His staff looked exhausted and he knew that he was even pushing himself too far. Was this the best they could do for Paris? Was this guaranteed to make Victor sit up and pay attention? Or, better yet, feel inferior?

He never thought he’d descend to taking their rivalry seriously. He never thought that a day would come when he’d actually act as if Victor was his enemy.

But he was wrong and this was personal.

And if it meant that an attack on _Runway_ would cost him his job, then so be it.

He rose from his chair. “Everyone go home and rest. I’m not changing anything last minute. I don’t want half-dead models when we get there.” It was, after all, their last day before they left for Paris.

He walked out with a goodbye and returned to his office.

His predecessor had kept giant posters of himself on the walls of his office, but Phichit wasn’t the type to do that (besides, who would want posters of their predecessor in their office?). He settled for photos of models wearing his favourite pieces. Sometimes he took them down and replaced them with new ones.

A young dark-haired man stared from one such poster, dressed in Yuuri’s outfit for a night out at the opera. Phichit had hesitated before he put that one in the January issue, but it was too good to pass up. Would Victor’s mind make the connection? Would Victor take it as a hint? Would he treat it as a declaration of war?

But Victor had done nothing.

Now his affair with Yuuri was all over the papers. Some days Phichit felt as if every single publication was interested in it. If someone had told him that _Popular Science_ had an article about it next to a piece about new sources of energy, he wouldn’t have been surprised at all. It killed him to see his friend’s name dragged through the mud like this. And he could see how much it killed Yuuri. But it frustrated him most of all that Victor made no public announcements whatsoever. He managed to avoid the press completely and no one knew (even though they were all dying to find out) what he thought of Yuuri’s friendship with Phichit.

Yuuri’s mad routine hadn’t changed and he still spent nights away from home, which led Phichit to conclude that Victor was still in the dark about their friendship.

To be so clueless, so locked away in your own head that you not only missed what every headline proclaimed on the street (at least for a week, before they got bored with that and returned to discussing politics again), to be so unaware of how your lover felt took a certain kind of skill.

_No_ , Phichit thought, _you have to be a real bastard to do that._

He sighed and called Yuuri. Yuuri didn’t answer and the call went to voicemail. Phichit hung up and called again. And again. And again. Not stopping until his friend picked up. This was one conversation he refused to postpone even by an hour.

“Hello?” Yuuri answered at last. “I-is something wrong?” He sounded flustered and out of breath.

Phichit looked at the clock.

10 pm.

He sighed and delivered his ultimatum. Things had gone on long enough. It was time for him to step in and do something. “I’m sorry, Yuuri, but I can’t stand by and watch you suffer. If you don’t quit by the end of Fashion Week, I’ll make sure he fires you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1k kudos! Oh my god! Thank you so much, everyone! You’re all amazing and to the person who sends me messages to [my tumblr](http://witharthurkirkland.tumblr.com/), you are amazing too! (I always have so much fun answering those.)


	20. The Evening Everything Changed

All of the stars in the night sky couldn’t hope to compete with the sparkle in Yuuri’s eyes. The city with its nice views was dull and boring until Yuuri stood in the middle of it. The streets that Victor had seen before and never paid attention to were suddenly very interesting. He was mentally picturing a photoshoot with Yuuri in the middle of Paris before he’d even realized he was doing it.

Victor stopped and watched the boy turn to look at him with a curious expression on his face.

_He’s beautiful._

He took Yuuri’s hand and watched him break out in a smile as he raised it to his lips. But it wasn’t enough. Victor reached out for Yuuri’s face and the boy leaned forward eagerly.

They stood in the middle of a little street, lips joined, holding on to each other. Yuuri’s hands trailed up Victor’s back to his shoulders.

Victor felt his mind grind to a halt for the first time in a long while. He stopped thinking about what either he or Yuuri were wearing. He forgot entirely about the upcoming fashion show. He focused completely on Yuuri.

Yuuri pulled away first. He turned away and kept walking.

Victor had the feeling that something was wrong. It was nothing more than a little pang in his chest, an odd premonition, that returned to him much later. But he brushed it off as something silly then.

Instead he followed Yuuri and caught him around the waist. Yuuri raised his eyes and Victor could see that the smile was gone.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he whispered.

 

It was probably romantic: walking down a street in Paris on a starry night with the person you were hopelessly in love with. But every minute was poisoned by the sure knowledge that it was all about to end. Maybe he should enjoy these last few minutes of happiness, he thought. Maybe he should just forget everything for a little while. But that wasn’t meant to be.

He couldn’t forget everything. He couldn’t even stop thinking about it.

He pulled away from Victor’s kiss, knowing his own heart wasn’t in it and walked on, trying to gather his courage.

He’d suggested this evening walk to Victor, hoping it would be the perfect chance to explain everything. When they were alone he could talk without any distractions. Or so he hoped, anyway.

He licked his dry lips as Victor caught him in another embrace.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said, looking into Victor’s face.

This was it. This was the moment he came clean and Victor fired him.

Victor raised a hand and slid a thumb over Yuuri’s cheek affectionately.

In his head Yuuri could hear the words Victor would say, could feel the world around him shatter.

“It’s um… it’s about _Fantastic Man_.” He stopped, taking in the expression of polite interest on Victor’s face.

He knew better than anyone how much Victor was driven by his rivalry with Phichit. He heard Victor mutter about putting together a better collection than _Fantastic Man_ when Victor forgot himself. He’d go on about it at all hours of the day.

_How? How do I say it?_

“The thing is… The truth is…” There were so many ways to say what he wanted to say. Unfortunately, he picked the wrong approach entirely. “The editor of _Fantastic Man_ , he… I owe him a lot and…” He thought he’d work his way to it gradually, but Victor interrupted before Yuuri could get to the most important part.

“Oh, I know all about it,” Victor said with a smile.

“Y-you do?”

 _So you_ haven’t _been ignoring everything around you?_ Yuuri felt hope rise in his chest. Maybe Victor had already found out and decided it was no big deal. Maybe Victor actually loved him. Really, truly loved him, despite everything, despite how absurd and ridiculous it sounded.

“Of course. I notice this sort of thing. It’s my job. You take your inspiration from _Fantastic Man_. Several of the outfits you wore appeared in the magazine.” He leaned in, as if to give him another kiss. “You shouldn’t feel ashamed of that,” he whispered. “Just because _Fantastic Man_ is _Runway’s_ rival doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to draw inspiration from it.”

Yuuri felt his heart sink.

Victor brushed a strand of hair out of his face and pressed his lips against Yuuri’s. One of his hands was still on Yuuri’s face.

 _I have to go,_ Yuuri realized. _This has to be our last date. Tomorrow I will hand in my resignation and leave. I have to. I can’t stay any longer._

He responded, feeling tears rise to his eyes.

It was over.

Yuuri put his arms around Victor’s neck.

Victor pulled away and chuckled. “Let’s go back to our room,” he whispered and rubbed his nose against Yuuri’s.

“Let’s go,” he whispered back and then he added, “I want you.”

“My sweet Yuuri,” Victor said, his hand sliding up into Yuuri’s hair, “my sweet, impatient Yuuri.”

“Yes…” Yuuri whispered, heart breaking even as the feel of Victor’s hand made him give a short gasp. “Yes, I’m always impatient. I always… I can’t wait until the night comes and you’re all mine.”

Victor laughed and pulled away. “You’re a dangerous one. Should I entrust myself to you?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” Yuuri played along and took Victor’s hand.

Victor laughed as Yuuri planted a kiss on his palm.

 _Maybe we’re just not meant to be,_ Yuuri thought.

The editor was his charming self again, drawing Yuuri in, turning his head.

They walked on, pulling each other close, and then pulling away, as if it was a kind of dance. It went on until they made it back to their – no, Victor’s – apartment.

The editor had an apartment in the most fashionable part of Paris, because of course he did. It was as grand and as well-furnished as his penthouse suite in New York. He even had his own chef who had made them dinner that evening. A dinner they’d eaten by candlelight.

 _All this could be yours,_ a little voice whispered into Yuuri’s ear, but he ignored it.

They stood in the bedroom, still fully clothed, arms around each other.

“You really want to have your way with me, don’t you?” Victor joked.

“Will you let me?” Yuuri asked, his tone completely serious.

Victor stepped back. “Yes,” he said in an equally serious tone of voice.

Yuuri didn’t hold back. He’d learned by then how to make Victor moan from pleasure and beg for more. He knew what made the editor shudder and gasp. If the editor had anything else to say, it would have to wait until later.

 _I don’t know how long you’ll remember me for,_ Yuuri thought. _I don’t even know if you ever think of any of your past lovers, but maybe sometimes you’ll think of me. And maybe you won’t hate me when you do._

He understood now why Victor had had so many lovers. It had nothing to do with him tiring of them, like he’d initially thought.

Victor gave a gasp as Yuuri trailed kisses over his spine.

 _They all walked out on you, because of how you are._ He slid his hands over Victor’s lower back, as he planted the last kiss.

“Yuuri…” Victor whispered weakly, “Yuuri, please…”

“I’ll take care of you,” Yuuri whispered tenderly. _For tonight._

As he took Victor it occurred to him that if the editor had had any other job, things might have been different. _But then you wouldn’t have been the way you are_ , Yuuri thought sadly. He lowered his head, resting his forehead against Victor’s back as he tried to catch his breath.

“More please…” Victor begged.

And Yuuri obliged.

Afterwards he buried his face in Victor’s chest and tried hard not to weep while his lover – no, his boss – no, the editor of _Runway_ – played with his hair.

It was hard to sleep that night. Several times Yuuri would wake up, surfacing from a nightmare that faded as soon as it came and panicked that the editor had already left, only to be met by the odd sight of Victor sleeping peacefully.

 _I’ve never really appreciated just how handsome you are,_ Yuuri thought as he snuggled closer to Victor. He reached out, but didn’t dare touch Victor’s face for fear of waking him. _And I know that there is no one like you out there._

 

The fashion show came, all catwalks, designer outfits, gorgeous models, snapping cameras and interviews. The two assistants ran around, fetching everything Victor or _Runway’s_ models needed. The first assistant got the honour of sitting next to Victor when his collection was presented. The second assistant’s job was to run around and make sure that nothing went wrong last minute.

Yuuri’s morning started with getting Victor’s dry cleaning and went downhill from there. His lunch break was ten minutes long. He ran into Yuri halfway through the day, as they got nearer the main event and Yuri noticed the look on his face.

“You finally decided to do it, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Yuuri nodded.

“Good.” Yuri turned to go and hesitated. “If you need anything, let me know.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Yuri waved him off and walked away. He paused in the doorway and a rare smile appeared on his face. “Good luck.”

Much later Yuuri read the article that analyzed and praised both collections presented at the fashion show. He didn’t get a chance to properly see much of either of them, apart from what he’d seen of Victor’s collection while it was being prepared. He couldn’t remember anyone mentioning any themes, but the article discussed them with an air of authority anyway.

 _It’s hard to say at first glance (even after a third and fourth one), which editor presented the more interesting collection. Victor Nikiforov presents us a collection exploring life and love. The autumn clothes don’t bring to mind the upcoming end of things like so many autumn collections do. There is no sense of gloom and doom, but of life and rebirth. Fans of_ Runway _and of Victor Nikiforov’s work, in particular, speculate that this is a reflection of his affair with Yuuri Katsuki. And, while some of the pieces invoke the innocent love for all things big and small in the world, there are overtones of passion and…_

At that point Yuuri’s eyes skimmed through to the rest of the article until his friend’s name leapt off the page at him.

_Phichit Chulanont presents a different theme: his work speaks of dreams and the joy one gets from them. It boasts his usual flair and love of bright colours. It shows how in the pursuit of our dreams we…_

He didn’t bother to read beyond this point.

_It’s just clothes! Nothing more than clothes! Some fabric stitched together in a nice way. Where do they get all of this from?_

But who won their battle? Which collection did the critics prefer? It was hard to say. Opinions seemed to be split evenly between the two editors.

At least until the events of that evening and the following morning became known to the general public.

 

Victor sat in the front and watched his models demonstrate the collection he’d put together for the show. For some reason the organizers had changed the order in which the designers showcased their work. Normally, his collection was the last to be demonstrated (thanks to the old save the best for last rule), but this year he was scheduled for the first day, right after the editor of _Fantastic Man_. Everyone else, even Seung Gil who would appear at Fashion Week as his protégé was set to go over the course of the following six days.

He kept his expression perfectly neutral while the other editor’s work was put on display. When his models came out he permitted a polite smile to appear on his face.

Life and Love. His collection had been completely inspired by Yuuri. Everything to the last little detail existed because of his influence over the editor.

It suddenly struck him that the one person who should see it in its full glory as it should look, the person who had inspired it by merely appearing in his life, didn’t get to see it.

He thought of Yuuri, still doing his best to keep his expression under control. And he remembered the boy as he’d been the night before.

 

_Yuuri sat on Victor’s lap and slid a finger down his chest. Neither of them was wearing anything. There was a tender look on his face. In fact, everything about him was tender from his expression to his caress. And Victor knew that was how he would always remember that night._

_He waited patiently for Yuuri to do more than just touch him with his finger._

_Was it just his imagination or were Yuuri’s eyelashes wet?_

_He held his breath as Yuuri’s other fingers joined the one on his chest as it went down so that by the time he was at Victor’s belly button his whole palm was touching the editor’s skin._

_Yuuri leaned forward and kissed Victor’s chest._

_His heart beat faster and he knew he couldn’t keep himself under control._

_Victor raised his hands and pulled them through Yuuri’s hair, leaning in and kissing him._

_Yuuri’s cheeks felt wet, but when Victor pulled away he didn’t see any tears and decided he’d just imagined it._

 

Victor returned to the here and now as the last model stepped out in a long black gown. It was covered in thousands of little diamonds and had a red inner lining. It was the gown he’d mentally called Tender Night. It would’ve suited Yuuri better, he was certain of it.

As if he’d somehow felt that Victor was thinking of him, the second assistant appeared at the back of the room within Victor’s field of vision.

 

After every outfit had been demonstrated and each model got a chance to enjoy several minutes of fame, everyone retired for a rest, a bath and a chance to prepare for the party in the evening.

There were press conferences and networking events planned for the next day when people would have to don a mask and play a role to get what they wanted. But, for now, they could relax, have fun and get stupidly drunk, if they so wished.

Yuuri stood in front of a mirror and adjusted his tie. He folded up Victor’s handkerchief and pressed it to his cheek with his eyes closed.

Yuri had already left. Victor was in the bath. For a moment, Yuuri was all alone.

The most important day of Fashion Week was over. He could leave whenever he wanted. He could put the handkerchief down, write a short note to leave on top of it and walk out.

He sighed and pulled away from it. As he did so, he raised his eyes and spotted Victor in the doorway. He stood in his bathrobe, still somehow contriving to look immaculate.

“Yuuri…” he said, “are you crying?”

“N-no, just… I have allergies,” he said and coughed unconvincingly.

Victor crossed the room to join him in a few strides and rubbed the handkerchief with the tips of his fingers. He could tell it was wet. Of course he could.

“I won’t leave you alone tonight,” Victor promised in a quiet tone of voice. “I want you to come to the party with me.” He slid his thumbs over Yuuri’s face. “I want to dance with you tonight.” He leaned in close. “And make love to you afterwards,” he added passionately.

 _I’ll leave tomorrow,_ Yuuri thought. _Definitely._

Victor pulled away and turned to head out the door.

 _No,_ Yuuri thought, watching him leave, _right after the party._

 

Victor remembered every detail of that evening so well, it was as if someone had etched it into his memory. That evening when everything changed.

They took the car to the party and Victor held on to Yuuri, determined not to let the boy out of his sight. He offered Yuuri his arm once he stepped out and trembled slightly once he felt Yuuri lean against it.

He was at a party with a beautiful date. He was so happy, he felt as if he was floating through the air. He wanted to go grab a drink, but Yuuri insisted they dance first, so dance they did.

It was a slow, awkward dance. Neither of them was really sure what to do. Fortunately, there were too many people around them for anyone to notice.

Victor remembered afterwards how warm Yuuri’s hand was in his and how his breath felt against his neck. How those eyes watched him through his glasses. He remembered the feel of the fabric’s texture of Yuuri’s jacket under the hand he kept on the boy’s back. Victor leaned in to whisper a compliment into Yuuri’s ear and then watched the boy blush.

It was a slow dance and they could get away with staying in one spot and barely moving. Victor found himself wishing the song would go on forever.

A small band played somewhere amid the crowd of guests. Suddenly they changed to a faster song and Victor decided it was time to stop pretending to dance.

“I don’t think I can –”

“Come on!” Yuuri exclaimed, breaking out into a faster rhythm and pulling Victor after him. “It’s not that hard!”

Victor laughed and let himself be swept along, or maybe swept away.

More dances followed until Victor had to throw in the towel and admit that he was tired. Yuuri left the dancefloor with a single nod and they headed for the drinks. They had a glass of champagne each and made light-hearted jokes about people they spotted in the crowd.

Yuuri had that sadness in his eyes that Victor noticed more and more. He leaned in to the boy’s ear and whispered something dirty and then watched the boy blush again.

He should’ve insisted they leave then. He should’ve noticed the tenderness in Yuuri’s eyes and taken him home. The rest of the party wasn’t important. It wasn’t as if he was planning to talk to anyone else there anyway.

But he stayed. He spotted Stéphane in the crowd and signalled him to come over, changing his mind and deciding that he did want to speak to someone other than Yuuri. His hand rested on Yuuri’s shoulder while the three of them chatted like old friends.

Then someone invited themselves to their group and joined their conversation. Someone else followed. And someone else.

Victor turned to say that it was time they left, but the words froze on his lips.

Yuuri was gone.

His heart fell.

Every single alarm bell in his mind was going off and he left the group, determined to find Yuuri no matter where he was.

 

Yuuri was tired and lonely. He waited for a chance to talk to Victor alone, but the editor clearly preferred the company of his friends.

He was hungry and decided to slip away and find something to eat. _I’ll be back before he even notices I’m gone. If he even notices._

Big mistake.

As soon as he was ten steps away from Victor people closed in on him, all of them asking for something.

Yuuri stood still, feeling lost. What did they all want from him?

The answer, as it turned out, was attention. They asked, in one way or another, if he would like to meet with them so they could get a chance to get to know him better.

He felt his mouth drop open. _Why?_

One person pulled him aside and launched into a long litany about financial problems, some big misunderstanding, something that could be cleared up easily.

“…and being so closely acquainted with both Mr. Nikiforov and Mr. Chulanont,” the man went on, “you can…”

Influence. Oh God! They thought he had influence!

The absurdity of the idea almost made him laugh. They thought – they really, seriously thought – that a single word from him would sway Victor and Phichit, two men in positions of great power. Victor, who never backed down no matter what happened and always got things to go his way and Phichit, who had somehow become his rival! That he could have any form of influence over either of them was a mad thought, completely insane.

Sure, he was Victor’s lover, but – no, he didn’t want to think about that now. And Phichit was his best friend, but he’d always been strong-willed and would often get his way. He drove for perfection and would have moments of childlike innocence… much like Victor did.

The similarities struck Yuuri in that moment and he stood breathless as people continued to fight for his attention.

Were they really that similar? Both editors of fashion magazines, both very talented and creative, both with their own views of the world.

 _Maybe I just attract certain types of people,_ he thought.

He’d seen both of them get struck by inspiration at the most inconvenient times and then rush off to record their idea to revisit later. He’d seen them get exasperated when people around them didn’t understand their vision.

But Victor was cold and distant, while Phichit was warm and friendly.

_Maybe that’s how Victor started out and several years of being the editor of a magazine did that to him. Will it happen to Phichit too?_

He realized that mentally he’d already left Victor and moved back in with Phichit. But that thought wasn’t the one that scared him (after all, he’d already made up his mind). What scared him, however, was the thought of having to watch his closest friend become like the editor of _Runway_.

Was Phichit at this party as well? He had to be: everyone else was.

With a muttered apology to the people around him, he slipped away to go find his friend, forgetting completely about his lover.

 

Phichit was enjoying himself about as much as a person in a position of power could enjoy themselves at an expensive party where some of the guests decided to get drunk. He enjoyed himself about as much as a person who knew their best friend was suffering and unable to escape could enjoy themselves.

He knew Victor and Yuuri were out there somewhere in the crowd. He’d seen them dance together, a little awkwardly, eyes fixed on one another. He thought it summarized their affair quite well.

He was getting a headache. Maybe it was time to go home. Or should he have a drink after all? A drink to his poor friend who’d stuck his head in a noose.

“Phichit!” He saw people step aside to let Yuuri go through.

“I was worried about you.”

“I’m pretty sure you have that the wrong way around,” Phichit told him and they laughed.

“Why are you worried about me?” Phichit asked, his interest piqued.

“Oh, just… you know… in general…” Yuuri flailed, making Phichit smile wider.

“I’m not afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,” he said, referring to the editor of _Runway_. “Listen, Yuuri, I have…” he pulled Yuuri away so they could talk in private.

It took them several minutes to find a free spot. One of the snack tables was completely abandoned. They stopped by it, as if interested in the food offered and talked.

“I have some influence now,” Phichit said. “I helped Guang Hong organize his own art show and I can help you.” He smiled and loaded a plate with food, which he then held out to Yuuri. “I know someone at the New Yorker. They’ll make sure your résumé isn’t ignored. Don’t you see, Yuuri? You can get the job you always wanted!”

Yuuri sighed. “Thank you.”

“No matter what happens, I won’t let him ruin your life,” Phichit promised. “And it’s not just words. I can deliver on my promise.” _So you don’t have to stay with him. You don’t have to suffer._

“Thank you.” It sounded much more sincere this time. “I already made up my mind,” he said.

 

Victor walked past the dancers, past people too drunk out of their mind to not do something stupid, past several groups having a heated argument and a couple of members of the press.

He’d briefly glimpsed Yuuri in the middle of a group of people who all seemed to be asking for something. Victor was too far away to see his expression. Then Yuuri vanished and Victor continued his search.

_There! He’s over there, talking to a young man._

The young man turned around and Victor saw his face.

It was the editor of _Fantastic Man_.

Yuuri was smiling and nodding. The naïve boy had probably decided to use the opportunity to thank the editor in person for his fashion ideas.

Victor shook his head at the boy’s innocence and decided to join them.

Mr. Chulanont laughed as he told Yuuri what was probably an amusing story and then leaned towards the young man and whispered something that made him blush into his ear.

Jealousy bit Victor hard and he barged into their conversation, as all of his self-control evaporated into the air.

 

“I’m going to quit,” Yuuri said.

“Finally!” And Phichit, unable to contain himself, threw his arms around Yuuri in a hug. He held on to his friend for a little longer than was really necessary before letting him go and changing the topic to something completely unrelated.

He told Yuuri silly stories, trying to cheer him up. He could see that the decision hadn’t come easy to him. When the stories weren’t distracting enough, he told a really dirty one and leaned forward to whisper the punchline into Yuuri’s ear, just in case someone was listening in and then laughed when Yuuri blushed from embarrassment. He was still so innocent!

 _Hasn’t the editor of_ Runway _ever talked about this kind of thing?_ He wondered, knowing all too well it was the kind of question he could never ask.

And then the editor of _Runway_ himself showed up, pale and trembling with anger.

“Stop bothering my Yuuri,” he demanded.

“You took the words right out of my mouth! Come here, Yuuri,” Phichit reached out and took Yuuri’s hand, pulling him closer, “a promise is a promise.”

Yuuri looked from Phichit to Victor.

Victor stepped forward, drawing himself up to his full height. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that –”

“Please, Phichit…” Yuuri interrupted and froze as he realized that he’d called his friend by his first name in front of Victor.

It was one of those moments when everything hung in a delicate balance and a small action could turn everything over. Yuuri kept opening and closing his mouth, trying to find the right words to say. It was even harder with both editors staring at him.

“You don’t need to explain anything, Yuuri,” Victor said coldly. “I wasn’t born yesterday.” He turned around and walked away towards the exit.

Yuuri stared after him in shock. “Why, Phichit?” But he didn’t give Phichit a chance to answer and ran off after Victor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to read a stress-free fic where Yuuri and Victor have a nice, healthy relationship, fashion (in this case lingerie) plays a part and Yuuri is very sexy, I recommend my Burlesque AU: [Comes Love](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11858748/chapters/26774304). Hopefully it will make you feel better.


	21. On the Nature of Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, when you finish this chapter read at least the first few sentences of the author's note that follows.

Yuuri caught up with Victor as the editor reached his car. He was determined to leave, yes, but he wanted Victor to know the truth. “Wait! There’s… there’s something I need to say.”

“What?” Victor turned, eyes blazing. “Come to gloat? Come to announce you’ve won? Or maybe you think that you can make demands now?”

“What?” _What on Earth is he going on about?_

“I caught you with your friend,” Victor went on. “Or is he your lover too? I found out your secret. You probably thought you could lie to me forever. You got too careless!”

Yuuri froze with his mouth open, not knowing what to say to that.

“I only want to know one thing: why did you do all this? What is it for? Were you trying to ruin my reputation or were you passing our secrets along to _Fantastic Man_ or what?”

“What? No, I –”

“And what do you get out of all of this? Personally, I mean. Will he write you out a big check when you’re done? You sure as hell didn’t ask _me_ for anything!”

 _Why bother asking questions, if you don’t let me answer any of them?_ “Phichit is my friend,” Yuuri began, remembering the words he’d prepared to explain everything, “but –”

“I see it now. He’s the friend you would do anything for, even sleep with someone else.” He scoffed, giving Yuuri a disgusted look. “Your loyalty to your friend does you credit.”

What was the use? He never listened before and it was obvious that he wasn’t going to start now. Yuuri had prepared himself for an explanation, hoping against hope that maybe Victor would understand and then they’d go their separate ways, if no longer lovers or friends, then at the very least like people who didn’t hate each other. Much.

But Victor wasn’t listening, locked away in his head like always, lost in a world where no excuses were acceptable and everything had to be done right and this very minute. Everything had to be about him and coincidences or accidents didn’t exist. Only Machiavellian plans.

“I take it I’m fired?” Yuuri said, deciding to get straight to the point.

Victor opened his mouth. He must’ve expected Yuuri to defend himself and was caught a little off guard by the fact that he didn’t bother.

“You caught me at a bad time,” he said. “I guess that makes you lucky. As soon as Fashion Week is over, your employment at _Runway_ is terminated.” He opened the door of his car and Yuuri noticed that his hand was trembling, but his voice was steady and his eyes were cold.

Was it possible that buried deep beneath that exterior was someone who actually cared? Well, it didn’t matter now. He’d already gone. In his head, Yuuri was on the flight home, anticipating the sane life that waited for him.

He took in the way Victor’s eyes bore into him and how his lips turned white as he bit them angrily. Yuuri fought down a sigh. _And now he will have his revenge. He’ll make my last days here a living hell. But he forgets that I’ve lived through it all before. I can take anything he throws at me._

A sound made him turn his head.

A crowd of reporters was running towards them, microphones primed and ready to strike.

“Get in the car, Yuuri.”

“What?”

“I am still your boss and you will do as I say, so get in the car _right now_.” He didn’t shout and, for some reason, that was worse.

Yuuri opened the door and took the passenger seat in the front without another word.

Victor claimed the spot in the back and ordered the driver to take them away.

The journey passed in heavy silence. Once the driver threw a look at Yuuri, probably wondering why he was suddenly sitting at the front, but decided not to comment.

He didn’t stop until they were in the courtyard in front of Victor’s apartment.

Victor opened his door himself and climbed out of the car on Yuuri’s side. “You will pick me up in the car tomorrow at 7 am,” he said, not even bothering to look at Yuuri. “That’s all.”

Yuuri watched him walk away.

“Where now?” the driver asked Yuuri.

 _Home._ Oh God, how he wanted to go home! The desire was strong enough to tear him apart. He didn’t want to spend a night at a hotel, or in someone’s arms. He wanted to go home, plain and simple. Not Phichit’s apartment, but his proper home where his parents lived. He wanted to sit in the kitchen, eating his mother’s cooking and listening to his dad grumble about something in the news. He wanted to go shopping with Mari, or to listen to her talk about the boys in her class.

But he was in Paris and home was miles away and across the ocean.

He sighed and pulled out his phone. He could only think of one person to call at a time like this.

The phone rang four times before the call was answered.

“…Yuuri? …What happened?” He sounded breathless and Yuuri wondered what errand Victor had sent the first assistant on this time. And then he remembered that it didn’t really matter anymore.

“I was fired.”

There was a short silence as the words sank in.

“So you finally told him.”

 _Not exactly, but he knows now._ “Yes.”

There was another silence.

“Where are you staying?” Yuuri asked. “Do they have any available rooms?”

“Are you mad? You’re fired. You can go home. I’ll put the expenses through, so go buy yourself a ticket. Hell, you can even buy yourself a seat in business class.”

“Really? You’ll do that for me?”

“Why not? You’re here because of work, anyway.” The next sounds were muffled, as if Yuri pulled the phone away from his ear. “Just give me one minute, Beka.” And then his voice sounded close by again. “Listen, just book it in Victor’s name. I’ll make sure the payment goes through.”

“Thank you, Yuri. You’re a lifesaver.”

“I know. Good luck.” He hung up.

Yuuri remembered about the driver. “Do you mind waiting a little longer?”

The driver nodded. “Sure.”

But Yuuri’s luck had run out: no matter who he called, there were no available seats on flights from Paris to New York. Not until the evening of the next day, anyway. He hung up, debated who else he could call and then realized.

It didn’t matter.

He wanted to leave right away. He _needed_ to leave right away. But he wasn’t Victor Nikiforov and that was the important bit. He wasn’t Victor Nikiforov and he could wait. He would have to.

He called the first number again, booked a ticket in Victor’s name for the following evening and hung up.

So he would still be in Paris the following morning. He could still come and pick up Victor at 7 o’clock.

 _You don’t have to do this,_ the voice of reason whispered. _You really don’t owe him anything. Just sleep in, eat out and go home. That’s what Victor would’ve done._

 _But I’m not Victor,_ he countered. _I don’t walk out on someone, if they’re counting on me. I’ll say goodbye properly and go._

_Yeah right you will._

In less than 24 hours he would be on his way home.

He stared down at his watch and realized what time it was and he remembered bits of his conversation with Yuri as well as how out of breath the first assistant had sounded when he’d answered.

_Oh my God! I interrupted him when –_

He texted Yuri a long apology that would probably never get a reply, but that didn’t matter. He hoped it would go well for him. It had to. Something had to go well that evening.

He stared out the window at the light in Victor’s room and gave a heavy sigh.

“Which hotel are you staying at?” he asked the driver, turning away from that window.

“I live here,” the driver answered and Yuuri realized that this was Victor’s driver in Paris. He was taking his first proper look at him now and he could see this wasn’t the same man as the one who’d driven them around in New York at all.

“Listen,” the driver said, taking pity on Yuuri, “I don’t know how you do things in America, but we don’t leave people on their own with nowhere to stay in France. Come on. You can stay with me.” He spoke with a strong French accent, but Yuuri could understand him easily enough.

“Really? But I don’t want to be a bother,” Yuuri protested.

“You won’t be,” the driver reassured him. “I have a son your age. He’s travelling this week, so you’ll just take his room. And my wife will be glad for your company.” He smiled. “You can tell us all about New York.”

“Thank you.” Yuuri smiled.

“Besides,” the driver said, pulling out of the courtyard, “if I tell my wife that I left a sweet young man like you to find a hotel room for himself, I will never hear the end of it.”

 

Victor stormed into his apartment, removing his jacket and tossing it aside angrily onto the first chair he passed. He’d spent the whole day looking forward to an evening with Yuuri. And now he was returning alone.

He passed through his living room and stopped to stare into the dining room at the romantic dinner his chef had prepared for them. He called the man in and ordered he take it all away.

“I don’t care what you do with it,” he said. “Eat it, throw it out, do whatever you want. Just get it out of my sight.”

He wanted to smash something. He’d never been a violent man, but the anger was building up inside him and demanded to be released.

Down the hall he went until he made it to the bedroom at last. He banged the door shut behind him and leaned against it.

Used again! Him! He’d fallen into the same old trap like a naïve child! Like an idiot!

Was true love nothing more than a fantasy invented by movies? Was it all just one big lie humanity kept telling itself? Or was it just his position in society that made him a constant magnet for people who betrayed others for their own gain?

He buried his face in his hands.

Yuuri appeared so sweet, so innocent. Seeing him with his enemy was like hearing thunder on a bright sunny day.

He pulled away from the door and dropped onto the bed. The same bed where they’d…

No.

He wasn’t going to give in to this. He wasn’t going to let it destroy him. He was stronger than that. He’d pulled through before. He would pull through now. He would go on as normal. Tomorrow he would face the press head on, along with the rest of the world.

And then he remembered everyone who had come into his office, dropped off a letter, stopped him in the hall or wrote him an email. They’d all started off with Yuuri’s name. Even the press that had camped outside the Elias-Clarke building.

They all knew.

But how?

He pulled out his phone and went through his email.

There. He found the first message at the top of his unread list. It was sent by someone at _Runway_.

 

_Dear Victor,_

_I understand that you are a busy man, but I feel that this is more important than…_

 

He skimmed past a paragraph of condolences and reassurances of loyalty and something about common interests and cruel people until he got to the end.

 

_Again, I understand that you are very focused on Fashion Week right now, but you can’t ignore what the whole world knows and what the press has already gotten tired of writing about. So I attached a few articles for your perusal._

_So sorry to be the bearer of bad news,_

_Chihoko_

 

He couldn’t remember anyone who worked for him with that name and at the moment he didn’t care if this was one of the models, or one of the stylists, or one of the cleaners.

His fingers trembled as he clicked to download the attachments.

_Who is Victor Nikiforov’s New Muse?_

_The Spy Who Kissed Me._

_A Fantastic Man at_ Runway _._

_The Honey Trap._

The journalists had pulled out all of the old clichés and thrown them into the headlines, trying to replace wit with puns. But he was in no state to laugh at their incompetence.

This is what they kept trying to tell him when he refused to listen.

He scrolled to a photo of Yuuri Katsuki and Phichit Chulanont laughing and wondered what the joke was. And then his blood ran cold as he realized that the joke was on him.

Why hadn’t he listened? Why had he shut them all out?

He got up and paced the room.

Suddenly everything made sense. His mind brought up little details that had seemed insignificant at the time, but which were now extra proof of Yuuri’s betrayal. And there was no doubt in Victor’s mind that Yuuri had taken his handkerchief as a trophy to show off to the editor of _Fantastic Man_. He thought back to the outfits Yuuri had worn, which had also appeared in _Fantastic Man_. He could almost kick himself for missing the obvious.

Yuuri had worn those outfits _before_ they appeared in the magazine.

So how did it work? Did Mr. Chulanont dress him up and prepare him to seduce Victor? Or was Yuuri the real fashion genius behind _Fantastic Man_ and had merely pretended to be clueless about it? There couldn’t _really_ be people with as little fashion sense as that!

He read on through the articles, determined to take in the full horror of his situation all at once.

One of them had a caricature showing Yuuri in bed between him and Mr. Chulanont, kissing Mr. Chulanont and saying “Don’t worry, my love, Victor is so blind that we can kiss right on top of him and he’ll never notice!” All while the caricature version of him was kissing Yuuri’s back.

He swore to find the artist behind it and end their career forever.

The articles about them never seemed to run out.

It was real. It was all actually real. It wasn’t some kind of nightmare. It wasn’t a sick and twisted joke or a prank. It was real. And it hurt.

The phone slipped out of his fingers onto the floor and he sat down on the bed as the anger gave way to something else.

Pain.

He was in so much pain. He never knew it was even possible to be in this much pain and now he had no idea how to deal with it.

He dropped onto his back on the bed and closed his eyes.

Yuuri had been special. He’d been different from everyone else. And Victor couldn’t ignore his feelings any longer. He’d spent several months fighting with his feelings, determined to remain in control, but Yuuri had won.

That kiss at the race was him throwing in the towel and surrendering. He couldn’t hate Yuuri now.

He tried to shut out that thought, but up it popped again.

 _In these last few weeks you’ve become more dear to me than anyone I’ve ever known,_ Victor thought, covering his face with his hands.

It didn’t matter what Yuuri did. It didn’t matter what secrets he’d shared with the editor of _Fantastic Man_. He didn’t want Yuuri to go. Victor needed Yuuri by his side. It was plain and simple.

_“I hate you,” Yuuri shouted, “You are the absolute worst and I hate you.”_

He whispered those words aloud, but they didn’t help. It was too late.

Maybe if he’d discovered his secret earlier, maybe if he’d seen them together at the Christmas party he would’ve fired Yuuri on the spot and gone on with his life as before.

But he couldn’t even fire Yuuri. He’d come up with some sort of excuse to keep him a little longer.

 _I can still fix this,_ he thought. _I can tell him he can stay. I haven’t formally fired him. He can stay. I don’t care if he goes on betraying me, or what he does. I don’t care._

_You win, Mr. Chulanont. Come and claim your prize, but give me Yuuri._

He gave a long painful sigh. _I can’t do anything about it: I’ve fallen in love._

 

  1. and Mme Virtu took in the sight of the handsome, stylish young man weeping at their dinner table.



Mme. Tessa Virtu looked at her husband.

 _Later_ , he mouthed and she nodded.

She told her husband about her day and listened to him talk about his. She beamed proudly at him as he talked about the important places he’d driven Mr. Nikiforov that day. She often boasted to her friends that her husband was the driver of the great Mr. Victor Nikiforov himself. Little did she know that after that day she would never boast about it ever again.

“Victor Nikiforov?” she would say. “Oh yes, I know of him. My husband used to be his driver. He’s not that special.”

But that day she smiled and listened and went off to fetch dessert.

And when her husband left the table she put her arms around the young man he’d brought home and let him cry, not asking a single question.

She knew what a broken heart looked like.

 

Morning came. Despite, everything it obstinately came.

Victor rose from his bed. He hadn’t slept a wink. The long battle between love and pride had left him feeling drained of energy. There were dark circles under his eyes and he spent well over an hour making himself look presentable. He didn’t even want to appear in front of his stylists looking like he did.

He folded up his handkerchief and then raised it to his lips, thinking of Yuuri.

The boy had wept. He remembered it now. He’d wept into the handkerchief Victor had given him and then denied doing it.

Maybe Yuuri had feelings for him after all.

Hope burned in his chest as he tucked the handkerchief into his pocket.

He remembered giving Yuuri his one morning and gave a long sigh. It wasn’t the only thing he’d given Yuuri that day.

It was 6 am. He still had time to think. To change his mind.

 _No, no,_ he thought. _There is nothing to think about. This is the way it has to be. I’ll go to that wretched press conference, answer some silly questions and then spend the day with him._

He heard a knock and let his housekeeper answer it. If it was Yuuri, he would soon join him. Everyone else didn’t matter.

He caught his reflection’s eye and tried to smile. But the corners of his mouth lifted half-heartedly before dropping again.

“Victor!” Yakov stormed in.

He was so surprised to see the Chairman in his apartment so early in the morning that words failed him completely.

“What is this?” Yakov threw down a newspaper on the table before him and Victor stared at the photo of him and Yuuri by the car from last night. “Why is it that you only ever think of yourself? Have you ever considered how damaging this is for _Runway_?”

Victor raised an eyebrow as Yakov dropped more newspapers on the table in front of him.

“This affair you’re having with your assistant, this _scandal_ , is all over the newspapers!”

“Look on the bright side: at least it increases our sales,” Victor replied. All Yakov ever cared about were sales, so what business was it of his what Victor did in his free time? Shouldn’t an increase in sales keep him happy?

“We’re a fashion magazine! We shouldn’t be selling more because the editor-in-chief can’t keep himself under control! Look at _Fantastic Man_! He’s selling much more than we are all the time and by all accounts the editor is a veritable saint!”

 _Saint? Just shows how little you know him!_ “I’ll fix it.”

“You better, or I’m going to have to do something I really don’t want to.”

Victor felt fear, true fear for the first time in his life. “You wouldn’t _dare_.” _Are you mad, old man? Without me there is no_ Runway _!_

“I just might.”

 

Yuuri woke up and turned over. He slid his hand over the bed, watching his fingers as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world.

The weak light of dawn shone in through the window. He shivered, turned over again and buried his face in the pillow.

The room was small and plain, but the bed was comfortable and that was all that mattered.

He felt better after crying. He was at peace. There was no going back now.

After a while he got up and dressed.

He loved Victor, really, truly loved him, but staying with him was no longer possible.

 _There isn’t anyone else like you._ Yuuri thought, pulling on yesterday’s clothes and tucking in the handkerchief. _I will never love anyone else the way I love you._

Once he was ready he stopped by the kitchen to thank the Virtus and leave with the driver.

The streets were empty and they got there early. Yuuri got out of the car walked across the courtyard, stopping only to hesitate in the doorway.

He swallowed and went up the stairs to Victor’s apartment.

Victor wasn’t alone.

Yuuri heard Yakov’s angry voice and froze in the hallway.

“This affair you’re having with your assistant, this _scandal_ , is all over the newspapers!” Yakov stormed.

“Look on the bright side: at least it increases our sales.” Yuuri heard Victor say.

“We’re a fashion magazine! We shouldn’t be selling more because the editor-in-chief can’t keep himself under control! Look at _Fantastic Man_! He’s selling much more than we are all the time and by all accounts the editor is a veritable saint!” Yakov raged on.

 _You really_ do _think of people as tools,_ Yuuri thought. _To the point of exploiting our affair to your advantage._ He turned away and left to go wait by the car.

 

When Victor came down Yuuri greeted him like he had in one of his early days in the job.

Victor was equally calm and polite. He got into the car and looked at Yuuri. “There’s something we need to discuss.”

Yuuri climbed in, thinking the same thing.

They went through street after street without saying a word. Yuuri risked a glance at Victor. The editor was staring out of the window. What was he thinking about?

Was it possible he was hesitating?

And then Yuuri realized this was his chance.

“I know how it must look,” he began, making Victor turn around to stare at him. “You find me with who you think of as your rival and you jump to conclusions. But this whole situation happened by accident. I know you won’t believe me when I tell you that I didn’t know Phichit had this job. I know how it looks and I understand that after everything in the press I must go. It would be the same anywhere else.”

He stopped and tried to understand the expression on Victor’s face. Were his words getting through? But he kept on, determined that he would say everything he’d meant to say in their last conversation.

“To be honest, I almost left yesterday, but I didn’t want to go without saying goodbye. Not after everything.” He sighed.

He waited for Victor’s outburst, but to his surprise, Victor’s tone was equally calm.

“Don’t talk about leaving, Yuuri. I’ll sort everything out, so you don’t need to go. I don’t want you to.” He paused and took Yuuri’s hand. “I love you.”

“Love?” Yuuri broke out into bitter laughter, snatching his hand away. “No, you don’t know what that means. There were days when I wasn’t sure you knew what lust means.”

“Wh-what? I… Why…?” Victor stuttered.

“It’s all just words to you. All this time I was nothing more than an assistant, catering to your every whim, granting your every wish. Just another _tool fulfilling its function_. I was there to inspire you and nothing else! Have you ever once thought about what _I_ want? What I _really_ want?” He could feel tears gathering in his eyes, but he wasn’t going to stop now.

“Never once have you shown that you really care about me,” he went on after a deep breath. “I worked for days starving and sleep-deprived, but you never cared. As long as I was there for you to sleep with, it didn’t matter. That’s not love! Look around you, Victor! How many people are you treating like instruments to get a job done? Do you ever stop to think that maybe they have their own lives, their own feelings? That they have something apart from all this? How many lives have you destroyed? Do you really think it’s worth it? Just over a _fashion magazine_? I can’t deal with this anymore! It’s too painful!”

“Painful?” Victor echoed, a shocked expression on his face.

With excellent timing the car stopped.

“I’m out,” Yuuri announced. “Goodbye.” He opened the door, climbed out and walked away. It didn’t matter where he was going as long as he was leaving it all behind.

After a while he stopped and turned around. A part of him wanted to see Victor running after him and apologizing.

But the editor wasn’t even looking in his direction. He was surrounded by the press and giving them his usual enthusiastic spiel, his sunglasses covering half his face and making his expression unreadable.

Yuuri turned away and kept going, putting more distance between them.

After a while his phone rang. He declined the call as soon as he saw who it was from.

It was over. He was free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fret not, Dear Reader, this is only the end of part one. Part two is yet to come! But this way you get to choose your own ending! If you think that Victor deserves a chance to redeem himself, part two is for you, otherwise – you don’t have to read it and just pretend that this is the ending. Or something. So, yeah, be on the lookout for part two which will bear the hopeful title of Redemption Wears Gucci as well as the hopeful tag "angst with a happy ending".  
> I plan to add this fic to a series in about 2-3 days just to give everyone a chance to take in the ending, so I guess you can subscribe to that if you want to be notified when I post part two?
> 
> Now for some notes on the fic itself:  
> Usually I write about healthy relationships (and I plan to continue to do that with my other fics), but in this case I wanted to explore a different kind of relationship. I’ll be honest: it wasn’t easy for me to write and I did my best in trying to get the tone just right. I guess it’s up to interpretation whether or not I succeeded.  
> Also I was very heartbroken when people left comments like “I have a job like this”. Please, if it’s at all possible, don’t keep jobs like Yuuri’s.
> 
> And, as always, thank you so much for reading, leaving kudos and writing comments! Thanks to anyone who sent comments to [my tumblr](http://witharthurkirkland.tumblr.com) (feel free to continue doing so)! You readers are great and I love to hear what you think about my fics!! ❤️ And a big thank you to LittleDearOne for being my beta for this fic!
> 
> And, because of my other fics I now play the song association game, so in my mind Yuuri walks off to [Evil by Matt Goss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaJU2I8wcZA).


End file.
